NCBFAA Encourages Members to Push Bankruptcy Clawback Fix

The new lobbyist for the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America encouraged members to keep calling their elected representatives' offices to ask them to support a bill that would change clawback rules in the case of business bankruptcies. Currently, money paid to customs brokers in the 90 days before a bankruptcy filing is clawed back from those firms, even if the money was passed through to CBP for duty payments. CBP does not return the duties in this process, so a customs broker is on the hook for it, and has to get in line with other creditors for a partial payment.

The NCBFAA has been trying to get a fix to this issue for years. This Congress's bill has 20 Democrats and six Republicans in the House as co-sponsors. There has not been a Senate companion bill introduced, because the senator who has agreed to do it is up for re-election, so they're awaiting the election outcome.

Martin Whitmer of Whitmer & Worrall told NCBFAA members during an online conference on Sept. 15 that out of 40 calls to Capitol Hill, no office has opposed the bill. Whitmer said that when local NCBFAA members talked to their representatives, they created some new champions, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Staffers for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked the Senate majority leader and the White House if the bankruptcy fix could go on a coronavirus relief package, but were told no, since the politics are so delicate around that package. The only other legislation that could attract it this year is a bill to fund the government. Not only have leaders said they want that continuing resolution to be a clean bill, any fix that went on a spending bill would only last one year.

Whitmer said the organization is setting itself up for next year. “The chairs may change but the game remains the same,” he said, if the Senate flips control as an outcome of the November elections.