CBP Sets EAPA Interim Measures for Cabinet Importer's Alleged Transshipment Scheme

CBP announced the launch of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation and the imposition of “interim measures” on BGI Group for alleged evasion of antidumping and countervailing duties on wooden cabinets and vanities by way of transshipment through Vietnam, the agency said in a recent notice. CBP will suspend liquidation and require cash deposits as of March 26, 2021, for entries from Vietnam from the BGI Group, which does business as U.S. Cabinet Depot.

The American Kitchen Cabinets Alliance submitted the EAPA allegation. Based on “documentation reasonably available to it, including aggregate U.S. import data, individual shipment data sourced from Panjiva … and affidavits from industry figures,” the petitioners alleged that cabinets produced in China are being “repackaged in Vietnam and then shipped to the United States for entry by BGI, and that such merchandise is being classified by BGI at time of entry as a product of Vietnam rather than China.”

The petitioners documented a surge in imports of wooden cabinets and vanities from Vietnam after liquidation was first suspended in the recent AD/CVD investigations on wooden cabinets and vanities from China. Other documentation showed a surge in shipments of cabinet door and frames from China to Vietnam, including to companies with the same address and a similar name as BGI Group’s supplier. CBP has already implemented interim measures on BGI Group’s imports from Cambodia based on similar allegations.

“Because evidence supports a reasonable suspicion that BGI entered covered merchandise into the customs territory of the United States through evasion, CBP has imposed interim measures,” CBP said in the notice. “The Revised Allegation reasonably suggests that BGI is evading AD/CVD orders A-570-106 and C-570-107, respectively, by importing Chinese origin WCV into the United States that had been transshipped through Vietnam and failing to declare the merchandise as subject to the applicable AD/CVD orders.”