Administrative Law

Dirty Deems Done Dirt Cheap

Posted on October 27, 2010
This case is very strange. It is also one of those interesting cases that involves the intersection of customs and trade law. Specifically, it involves Customs and Border Protection's treatment of entries subject to an antidumping duty order. As it happens, that treatment was wrong...

Hello Sydney

Posted on October 21, 2010
By request, I am posting this by request, something I am happy to do. If you see customs-related news items, always feel free to forward them to me at customslawblog@gmail.com.It seems that the Australian government is hoping that travelers entering the country know pornography when they see it and report it when they are carrying it...

Are Excises Taxes Protestable?

Posted on October 21, 2010
When Customs collects a tax for another agency, is it making a protestable decision? That is an important question. If the answer is yes, then the U.S. Court of International Trade has subject matter jurisdiction over the denied protest. If the answer is no, the importer has to look elsewhere for relief...

Filer Code Safe for Now

Posted on October 14, 2010
Customs and Border Protection assigns licensed customhouse brokers unique filer codes. These codes allow the broker to have electronic access to Customs.  The filer code, therefore, effectively permits the broker do business in a modern commercial environment...

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Gilda Wins

Posted on October 13, 2010
We have been following along with Gilda Industries, Inc. v. United States since the early days of this blog (here and here). Remember back when I would also blog about spiders in my basement and and Spore creatures? I kind of miss those days. I know my extended family does too...

Cert. Denied in Totes - Judicial Conference

Posted on October 12, 2010
I have been remiss again, but not for wont of effort. I have just been on the road while also sick. That is a bad combination.In terms of follow-up information, you should know that on October 4, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Totes-Isotoner...

Redelivery and Conflicts

Posted on September 27, 2010
Sometimes, we all have to take a big breath, close our eyes, and wade into a 64 page Court of International Trade Opinion. In this case, that opinion is United States v. Pressman-Gutman Co.The substance of this case is interesting in that it deal with the liability a surety has when the importer breaches the terms of its customs bond...

Requests for Information As Disclosure Terminators

Posted on September 21, 2010
Recently, I mentioned that nothing of interest has been going on. That was a mistake. For weeks, I have been working on several fronts on an issue of interest to all importers. I think because I have been involved for a while, and because the issue started slowly enough, I did not notice that lots of people now seem to care...

What's Happening

Posted on September 16, 2010
This is just a reminder that I am still here, in case you were wondering. I have been on the lookout for something interest to post. Lately, there have been slim pickings.The ACLU is pursuing another lawsuit challenging Customs and Border Protection's policy and practice of relating to searches of digital storage devices including laptops and phones at the border...

Hey Accountants!

Posted on September 02, 2010
I have an article in the latest edition of BNA Tax Planning International, Indirect Taxes (Vol. 8, No. 8, Aug. 2010). The article is entitled "Challenging Customs in the United States Court of International Trade." I'd provide a link to the article, but it is in an old-school paper publication and the on-line version requires a subscription...

Oh, Canada!

Posted on August 26, 2010
I do a lot of NAFTA work. For years, there have been unanswered questions concerning the ability of producers or exporters to allocate non-originating good to domestic customers and originating goods to customers in other NAFTA countries. That would maximize the benefit to the customers but might result in otherwise dutiable merchandise never being the subject to duty...

Court Update

Posted on August 24, 2010
There have been several recent customs-related decisions from the Court of International Trade recently. I have read them and generally don't find much in any that require comment. At the same time, I don't want you to think that I am slacking off...

The DR-CAFTA Bind

Posted on August 17, 2010
[Tip of the hat to my partner David Forgue, who has been thinking about this issue out loud longer than me.]At what point is compliance with a trade agreement so risky that it becomes unworkable? Do the powers that be know that the trade agreements they negotiate might be effectively nullified by the cost of compliance? These are questions raised by the Federal Register Notice Customs and Border Protection published today...

Newsy Stuff

Posted on August 05, 2010
A few news items on note:Festive ArticlesCustoms and Border Protection has asked the ITC to study a proposed tariff change to correct the tariff treatment of so-called festive articles that have utilitarian functions. This follows from successful litigation undertaken by my firm that showed that holiday-themed articles, even those that have utilitarian functions, can be entitled to duty-free entry under Chapter 95 of the tariff schedule...

Federal Circuit Web Site 2.0

Posted on August 03, 2010
Am I the last person to see the new Federal Circuit web site? It is a major improvement over the previous page. Thanks to whatever federal IT workers did the job.The main element of the new  home page is an attractive photograph of one of the Court's impressive courtrooms...

Reminder from BIS: We Don't Do Jurisdiction

Posted on July 30, 2010
In one my rare forays into blogging on exports, I will point out this reminder from the Bureau of Industry and Security. This interim final rule will amend the Export Administration Regulations to clarify that CCATS determinations by BIS only tell the applicant the relevant ECCN for the product...

News slap: One Really Small Step

Posted on July 26, 2010
PETA complains to CBP after the death of a CBP dog in a hot CBP car.Aphids stopped at border.US stops computers bound for Cuba from Canada.Customs and Border Protection employee stole Neil Armstrong's declaration and tried to sell it. For those of you under 30, Neil Armstrong is kind of big deal...

Passing this on . . .

Posted on July 26, 2010
I rarely get what amounts to a press release, but I recently received one from the University of Minnesota regarding a symposium on international economic law. I consider myself a workaday administrative law practitioner. I tend to find these things to be more theoretical than practical and I am all about being practical...

Monkey Business

Posted on July 20, 2010
It has been a while since I reported on the nastiness that is exotic animal smuggling. Here is a story from the BBC about a man arrested in Mexico City for smuggling titi monkeys from Peru. He had them rolled up in socks under his clothing, to protect them from having to be x-rayed as cargo...

APHIS Wins One

Posted on July 15, 2010
Sometimes, interesting court decisions come from someplace other than the Court of International Trade or Federal Circuit. In this case, it is the Second Circuit.In Natural Resources Defense Council v. Department of Agriculture, the NRDC, California, Connecticut, and my state of Illinois sued the Department of Ag over its implementation of regulations regarding imported solid wood packing materials...

DNA in the CIT

Posted on July 15, 2010
Remember the scene in Jurassic Park in which the characters watch a cartoon Mr. DNA explain how the bad guys sequenced bits of dinosaur DNA taken from amber-preserved mosquitoes then strung the strands together to form the full genome of the various soon to be rampaging Triassic (not Jurassic) critters? If you do (or if you are familiar with the phrase "polymerase chain reaction"), you will understand what was at issue in Applied Biosystems v...

A Material Question

Posted on July 06, 2010
A problem with which I have been grappling lately is how to advise clients on when raw materials are processed far enough to be considered unfinished articles. Sometimes it is a tough call. In Canex Int'l Lumber Sales v. U.S., the Court of International provided a good review of the law...

The Elena Kagan Hearings

Posted on July 01, 2010
What I want to know is: Where was Lindsay Graham on Passover?

I Can't Contain Myself

Posted on June 19, 2010
Sometimes, I hate this job.Pacific Northwest Equipment is a beautifully written, very logical decision of the Court of International Trade that just leaves me thinking it came to the wrong result. It's kind of like reading Hamlet except that in the end everyone lives happily ever after...

What About the Battery?

Posted on June 17, 2010
Dell Products v. United States raises the question of just how many batteries are part of a computer set? According to the U.S. Court of International Trade, the answer is one.The facts of this case are simple enough. One notebook computer entered the United States (via an FTZ) with two batteries...

New Template

Posted on June 17, 2010
Everything else is the same. Go about your business.

Trilobites Headed Home

Posted on June 09, 2010
This is an interesting article about fossils from China being intercepted in Chicago and returned to China. Good catch by the Customs and Border Protection officer. Good PR for my local Field Museum of Natural History too. The article says the fossils are 525 million year old paleovertebrates...

No Tweets Blago

Posted on June 08, 2010
It seems very strange to me that a judge would ever have to caution the defendant in a high-stakes criminal trial against tweeting from the courtroom. In my limited experience in criminal trials (as a clerk to a federal judge), they are pretty somber affairs...

Best Wishes

Posted on June 08, 2010
It seems that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Bersin is coming into office with a reasonable level of agency humility. According to press reports of his first policy speech, Bersin has pledged to repair the relationship between the agency and the trade...

More from the Courts

Posted on June 04, 2010
Honda of America Mfg., Inc. v. United StatesWe talked about this case when it was before the Court of International Trade and now the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has spoken. The case involves the classification of oil bolts used in cars and motorcycles...

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