Customs Law

In other news, the Court of International Trade has dismissed a claim seeking refunds of duties paid while GSP was lapsed. The case, Industrial Chemicals Inc. v. United States involves 65 entries on which the importer paid duties for goods that would have been duty-free if the Generalized System of Preferences was in effect. When GSP was renewed, the importer had a statutory 180-day period (ending December 28, 2015) in which to make a claim. Due to some undefined misunderstanding between the importer and its customs broker, the claim was not made until February 2, 2016. Customs promptly denied the request as untimely. The importer filed a protest challenging . . . well, something. Customs and Border Protection denied the protest and the importer sued in the Court of International Trade. In the CIT, the United States moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. There is some ambiguity about the plaintiff’s theory. The protest might be directed at the original refusal ...

Here's a question. Assume pots and pans from Thailand individually qualify for duty-free entry into the United States under the Generalized System of Preferences ("GSP"). That means they have 35% of their value derived from Thai-origin materials or costs and are shipped directly from Thailand to the U.S. So far, so good. Now assume that glass lids for the pots and pans are added to the imported goods and those lids are from China, which is not a GSP-eligible country. Do the pots and pans continue to qualify for duty-free entry under GSP or is the entire set disqualified due to the presence of the lids from China? That is the question presented in Meyer Corporation US v. United States . The tricky thing about this situation is keeping separate tariff classification rules, entry documentation, and GSP eligibility. The classification of the pots and pans plus the lids is controlled by General Rule of Interpretation 3(b), under which the retail set is assigned a single clas...

There have been a few cases of note that I have not yet reviewed. Call it Olympic Distraction Syndrome or Summer is Rapidly Ending Depression. Either way, I've read the cases so you don't have to. First up, Zojirushi America Corp. v. United States , from the U.S. Court of International Trade. This case will go down in legal history as the genesis of Zombie Protests. You heard it here first. Zojirushi is an importer of vacuum bottles and jars, home appliances, and housewares. It made several entries that Customs and Border Protection liquidated as entered. Zojirushi then protested the liquidation and asserted a claim for duty-free treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences. Customs, following its internal policy, "rejected" the protest as asserting a non-protestable claim. This case is important and complicated enough to merit bold-face headings, a rarity in this blog. Jurisdiction: 1581(a) or 1581(i)? Usually, Customs will either approve or de...

This may be my shortest post ever. Want your GSP refunds? The information you seek is here and here .