US Voluntarily Scraps Appeal of Customs Bond Penalty Suit Against Surety

The U.S. voluntarily dismissed its customs penalty appeal brought against surety firm American Home Assurance Co., according to an April 17 joint stipulation of voluntarily dismissal filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (United States v. American Home Assurance Co., Fed. Cir. # 24-1069).

In the case, the Court of International Trade said the government's decade of inaction before seeking to collect nearly $400,000 in unpaid duties from AHAC meant it was barred from alleging that the surety was in breach of the eight single transaction bonds at issue. The six-year statute of limitations for CBP to collect on customs bonds starts from the date of the underlying entry's liquidation and not from the date that CBP demanded payment, the court added (see 2308220054).

The U.S. appealed the ruling and previously sought an extension to file its opening brief on the ground that the arguing DOJ attorneys hadn't "obtained authority from the Solicitor General to perfect that appeal of this case through the filing of our briefs" (see 2312190088).

Taylor Pillsbury, counsel for AHAC, said in an email that she suspects the U.S. dismissed the case as a result of the trade court's decision in U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance Co. In that decision, the court said eight years was too long to wait to send a surety company a bill for an unpaid customs bond (see 2403180059). "In the American Home Assurance Co. case the bills were issued more than 11 years after the entries had liquidated," Pillsbury said.