Handwritten Correction Sufficient on US-Korea FTA Claim, CBP Says, Reversing CEE's Denial

An importer’s handwritten corrections on a 1520(d) post-importation claim for U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) treatments were sufficient, and the Apparel, Footwear & Textiles Center of Excellence and Expertise should not have denied the claim and required submission of a new certificate of origin, CBP headquarters said in a ruling released in early October.

Chico’s FAS had filed the claim on several entries of women’s knit apparel. The KORUS certification and the invoice originally listed a provision in subheading 6110 for the garments. But the customs broker employed by Chico’s, after receiving updated information on stitch count, drew a line through the typed classification and wrote a provision of heading 6106 by hand onto the form. The broker also changed the classification on the relevant commercial invoices.

The CEE denied the claim, based partly on its belief that Chico’s had to submit a corrected certification with its claim to fix the classification errors. Chico’s protested, and immediately applied for further review at CBP HQ.

Under 19 CFR 10.1003(c), importers must submit a corrected claim when “the importer has reason to believe that the claim is based on inaccurate information or is otherwise invalid.” The importer “must submit a statement either in writing or via an authorized electronic data interchange system to the CBP office where the original claim was filed specifying the correction,” says the regulation, which is specific to the KORUS but is also found in identical form in regulations on the Dominican Republic-Central America FTA (CAFTA-DR) and the U.S.-Chile FTA.

The overall claim filed by Chico’s was not based on the certification or the invoices that contained the hand-corrected error, so Chico’s was not required to file a corrected certification, CBP said in HQ 304675. Other documentation filed with the claim demonstrated that the garments were KORUS originating, and both headings 6110 and 6106 qualified for KORUS treatment, so overall “the submitted documentation supported the claim,” CBP said.