Customs Law

 As we discussed in the last post , not a lot happens in Customs Law Land that has a direct impact on the livelihood of individuals. Usually, we are dealing with refunds or duties owed by companies. One area that does impact individuals is appeals of denied Trade Adjustment Assistance, which is the federal program that provides financial and other assistance to workers who are "separated from employment" due to trade. In other words, TAA addresses those who are on the short end of the globalization stick. TAA goes back to the Kennedy Administration and is the bargain we make with workers. Economists (notwithstanding Peter Navarro) largely agree that globalization leverages local comparative advantages to generate a net economic benefit. But, everyone can also see that not every individual within the economy realizes benefits from globalization. TAA helps those individuals "adjust" through enhanced unemployment benefits, training, and relocation. It is not a perfect ...

 The Yiddish word rachmones  means compassion, mercy, or pity. It occasionally sneaks into legal discussions in cases where there is no clear legal right to relief but the applicant appears to be deserving of compassion or mercy. I remember first coming across this usage when reading Chutzpah , the memoire of the now troubling Alan Dershowitz in which he conveyed the story of working as a clerk for Judge David Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. According to Dershowitz, when a criminal defendant deserved compassion but had no strictly legal remedy, Judge Bazelon would request that his clerk find some basis on which to draft a "writ of rachmones." Dershowitz , Chutzpah , 58-59 (1992).  LEXIS tells me that Judge Berle Schiller of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania used the same phrase in a 2020 opinion involving a criminal defendant who had been sentenced to prison for 15 years for securing home loans by fraudulen...

Note: I am writing this post while on vacation at an undisclosed location. The Internet here is lousy. I am paying a fair amount of money for "high speed access." Despite that, I feel like I am working on a vintage 3600 baud dial-up modem. Consequently, you will have to make do with two links. I might go back and fill in more when I have a decent connection. We just talked about a Customs and Border Protection ruling in which I complained about CBP straying from the traditional substantial transformation test of looking for a change in name, character, or use to determine country of origin. Now we run up against Energizer Battery, Inc. v.United States , in which the Court of International Trade addressed essentially the same question. The CIT started out strong and raised my expectations that we would see a very detailed analysis of the test. We did get a thorough and logical opinion. But, I still have some concerns. So, let’s walk through this. Under the Buy America ...

Governments buy all kinds of unexpected stuff. Billiards tables, for example. In HQ H268491 (Oct. 15, 2015) , U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a final determination on the country of origin of certain billiards tables for purposes of government procurement under the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 . These rulings are not your run of the mill origin determination for purposes of labeling or duty determinations. Rather, an interested party may ask CBP for either an advisory or final decision on whether an article is a product of a designated country or instrumentality for purposes of securing a waiver of the "Buy American" rules for goods offered for sale to the U.S. Government. This ruling involves four billiards tables assembled in the United States from components from various countries. The components are shipped to the customer and the tables are assembled on-site. It is sufficient to understand that there are a lot of steps and a lot of parts. Also, the assembly...

Trade Adjustment Assistance is the too often overlooked part of the subject matter jurisdiction of the Court of International Trade. TAA is the federal program that provides benefits to workers and others who are separated from employment or otherwise injured as a result of international trade. The usual case has to do with factory workers who lose their jobs when their employer outsources production to a lower cost country. There are also TAA programs for agricultural producers including farmers and fishermen. [Side note: is there a gender neutral version of fishermen? "Fisher" seems stylistically inadequate.] Steve M. Carl v. United States Secretary of Agriculture is an interesting TAA case relating to the Farmers Program. The only real issue in the case is when the plaintiff was required to file his claim in the Court of International Trade. The relevant statute, 19 U.S.C. § 2395, requires that someone denied TAA benefits commence an action in the CIT "within 60 da...