Recent rulings from the Court of International Trade mean CBP will be much stricter going forward on what it does and doesn’t consider a valid protest, said Carrie Owens, chief of CBP’s entry process and duty refund branch. Speaking during a panel discussion at the Georgetown Law School International Trade Update conference on Feb. 27, Owens gave a variety of advice on the protest process, including that protests need to follow the form specified by law and regulation and should be as complete as possible to give it the best chance of being approved.
Brian Feito
Brian Feito is Managing Editor of International Trade Today, Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. A licensed customs broker who spent time at the Department of Commerce calculating antidumping and countervailing duties, Brian covers a wide range of subjects including customs and trade-facing product regulation, the courts, antidumping and countervailing duties and Mexico and the European Union. Brian is a graduate of the University of Florida and George Mason University. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2012.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 23 - March 1:
The International Trade Commission is beginning a new pilot program (here) to test expedited procedures for determinations of whether new or redesigned products are subject to import bans under Section 337 exclusion orders, the agency said. Under the pilot, the ITC will issue modification and advisory opinions on a given product within 60-90 days, or up to 6-9 months depending on the complexity of the issues involved, said the agency in a fact sheet (here). The launch of the pilot comes shortly after CBP said it would propose its own “inter partes” ruling process for deciding issues of exclusion order enforcement (see 1502120061). Speaking at a Georgetown Law School conference, a CBP official said the agency would still move forward with its inter partes proposal, but could end up scrapping it if the trade community finds the ITC process more useful.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 16-22:
A furniture importer is currently pursuing two federal court cases related to the assessment of antidumping duties on an entry where it was incorrectly listed as importer of record, International Trade Today has learned. Following a CBP ruling that held it liable for payment of the 216.01% duty applicable under the AD duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China (see 1501290028), Lifestyle Furniture filed suit in November at the Court of International Trade to challenge CBP’s denial of its protest. Just under a month later, Lifestyle sued the customs broker that apparently made the mistake on entry documentation, Nestor Reyes, in North Carolina Middle U.S. District Court.
A Trek Leather executive who was recently found liable for the customs violations of his company appealed the case to the Supreme Court in a petition for a writ of certiorari filed Feb. 13. Harish Shadadpuri, the company's owner, argued he cannot automatically be held liable for over $500,000 in penalties and unpaid duties for his company’s negligent failure to declare assists on imports of men’s suits. Rather, the government has to prove he personally aided and abetted those violations, or “pierce the corporate veil” and make the case that Trek Leather’s corporate officers should be liable, of which the government did neither in the case, said Shadadpuri.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 9-15:
The Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) presented a litany of recommendations related to export licensing, at the committee’s Feb. 11 meeting in San Francisco. Many of the recommendations were related to alignment of license requirements and enforcement across ports and agencies. Highlights of the recommendations from COAC are as follows:
CBP needs to ensure the messages Partner Government Agencies send through the Automated Commercial Environment are easy for the trade community to understand by providing adequate detail on which agency is involved and standardizing PGA messaging, said the CBP Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations’ 1 U.S. Government at the Border (1USG) subcommittee in recommendations presented to the agency at the Feb. 11 COAC meeting in San Francisco.
The uncertainty over the Department of Homeland Security’s budget is playing havoc with CBP planning and its employees’ morale, said CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske in opening remarks at the Feb. 11 meeting of the CBP Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations. Although front line staff would avoid a furlough if no appropriations legislation is signed into law by Feb. 28, the agency’s back office staff won’t be coming to work, including employees engaged in training and hiring new CBP officers, said Kerlikowske. For CBP employees that avoid furloughs and work unpaid, “those lingering effects of a shutdown on employee morale are extremely significant,” he said. “I don’t think the mortgage company or the hospitals or the doctors or anybody else are too concerned that you’ll be paid later if you just wait.”