Customs Law

I have not yet addressed cases brought under the Enforce and Protect Act ("EAPA"). These are important and controversial cases, so we need to change that. Also, there have been a few at this point, so we need to get going. As a starting point, EAPA is part of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. It sits in the customs laws at 19 USC 1517 . The act seeks to address the "evasion" of antidumping and countervailing duties by means of written, oral, or electronic statements (or data) that contain material and false statements or omissions that result in "any cash deposit or other security or any amount of applicable antidumping or countervailing duties being reduced or not being applied with respect to the merchandise." The act is directed at imports of "covered merchandise," which is products that, when imported, are subject to antidumping or countervailing duties. "Interested parties," who are most likely domestic prod...

On June 14, 2023, the U.S. Court of International Trade approved the voluntary dismissal of a case brought by a group of environmental organizations to force the U.S. government to take action to force Mexico to better implement steps to protect the grievously endangered vaquita. Prior posts on related legal efforts in this matter are here and here . The vaquita is a small porpoise that is endemic to Mexican waters in the Gulf of California. Unfortunately, its range overlaps with totoaba, which is subject to illegal fishing because the totoaba's swim bladder is prized in China for its apocryphal effectiveness in traditional medicine. As a result of illegal totoaba gill net fishing, there are 10 to 13 vaquitas remaining in the world. Unless there are dramatic changes in the bycatch of vaquita, the vaquita is will likely become extinct. The decision is not legally very important because the parties reached a settlement and there was no need for the Court to make important findings o...

Tariff classification can sometimes produce surprising results. Such is the case with Nature’s Touch Frozen Foods v. United States , a recent decision of the U.S. Court of International Trade. The seemingly simple issue was the correct classification in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States of mixtures of frozen fruit and of frozen fruit with vegetables. The competing headings are, in relevant part, 0811 “Fruit and nuts . . . frozen” and 2106 “Food preparations not elsewhere specified or included.” Nature’s Touch argued for classification in 2106 on the grounds that the Heading 0811 does not encompass mixtures of fruits or of fruits and vegetables.  Heading 0813, for example, covers "Fruit, dried, other than that of headings 0801 to 0806;  mixtures  of nuts or dried fruits of this chapter." There is no similar indication in 0811. Moreover, plaintiff noted that the subheadings in 0811 also do not mention mixtures; they identify only individual fruits includ...