Administrative Law

CIT Dumps on Wikipedia

Posted on June 02, 2010
A fumy thing happened on the way to deciding BP Products America, Inc. v. United States, the Court of International Trade had to deal with the question of what to do when the parties ask the Court to take into consideration information from Wikipedia...

Dinos Among Us

Posted on May 26, 2010
In a weird example of synchronicity, while walking to work today I was listening to Brian Dunning's Skeptoid podcast discussion of relic dinosaurs such as the Ropen of New Guinea and Mokele-Mbembe of Congo. As I crossed Michigan Avenue, I found this:Unfortunately, rather than being a living T-Rex, it is a promotion for the Field Museum of Natural History, which is celebrating the anniversary of its acquisition of Sue, the T-Rex skeleton...

For My Friends at Costco

Posted on May 21, 2010
For those of you not following my increasingly rare tweets (www.twitter.com/customslawblog), I should note that one of my favorite issues is headed to the Supreme Court. That issue is whether it is permissible to purchase branded merchandise abroad and import it without the consent (in this case) of the copyright holder...

On Your Left . . .

Posted on May 20, 2010
you will find my lungs. On your right is my heart. The reason for that bit of bike and charnel house humor is brought to you by the fact that I rode my bike to work for the first time yesterday. I am still feeling it today. Still, it was a nice sunny day...

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The Straw that Broke the Camelbak

Posted on May 13, 2010
For my buddy Lowell, I am tagging this entry as "Cycling."The Court of International Trade has ruled that a hydration system worn on the back while engaged in physical activity such as cycling is, for all intents and purposes, a backpack. Let's see how it got there...

CIT Decisions

Posted on May 11, 2010
The Court of International Trade issued a couple decisions on May 6 that are worthy of note on technical grounds.In Shinyei Corp. of America, the plaintiff filed protests to challenge liquidation instructions relating to the assessment of antidumping duties...

No Deemed Protest Denial

Posted on May 03, 2010
What happens if Customs and Border Protection sits on your protest for two years or more? There has been a notion among importers that the protest is automatically denied and can be challenged in Court. I think the basis for this is three fold. First, both the statute and the regulation are clear that Customs "shall" act on the protest within two years...

Safe Chemicals Act of 2010

Posted on April 28, 2010
One of the reasons I am a lawyer and not, say, a medical doctor or research scientist is that my skill with chemistry peaked out right around learning Avogadro's Number (6.02 x 10^23). When it came to balancing equations, things started to break poorly...

Major Overhaul of Export Controls Proposed

Posted on April 21, 2010
Yes, I do exports too, although not often here. But, this is important news, so I am passing it along.In a policy speech yesterday, Defense Secretary Gates proposed a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. export control process. Under the current bifurcated system, the State Department controls the exports of munitions and the Commerce Department controls the exports of dual-use technology...

Crypto-Customs

Posted on April 19, 2010
From past off-topic posts, you may know that I am a fan of the blog Cryptomundo on which Loren Coleman and others report on the science and pseudo-science (generally in the comments more than the posts) of searching for hidden animals. You know, hunting for Bigfoot, Nessie, and their ilk...

It's My Blogaversary

Posted on April 13, 2010
I have been at this blog for five years today. That outstrips the average blog life by a significant factor. I believe I read somewhere that the typical law-related blog (i.e., "blawg") has a life expectancy of three years, so I feel like I have accomplished something...

Domestic ADD Parties are not Beneficiaries of Surety Contracts

Posted on March 31, 2010
Usually, I stay away from antidumping cases. This is, after all, the Customs Law Blog. I leave it to others to run the trade law blog. But, Sioux Honey v. Hartford is an interesting case from many perspectives despite the underlying issues having to do with trade relief...

Pleading is the New Black

Posted on March 30, 2010
Every litigator knows the importance of pleadings. The complaint is the document that sets the parameters of your case. If you claim someone trespassed on your property, the complain needs to say that you own the property and that the defendant was there uninvited...

Bersin in at CBP in Recess Appointment

Posted on March 29, 2010
Back in September of 2009, President Obama nominated Alan Bersin to take the helm at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. My original post, which includes his biographical details, is here.To date, the Senate has not acted on the nomination. In fact, lots of nominations have languished...

Courtesy Notices Endangered?

Posted on March 24, 2010
I just noticed a Federal Register Notice in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection is proposing to eliminate the mailed paper courtesy notice of liquidation (CBPF 4333-A). The reasoning is that an electronic ABI message is already sent to the importer and the broker...

Broker Records

Posted on March 23, 2010
For my broker friends . . . .Customs and Border Protection is proposing to amend the record keeping rules to (1) permit records to be kept anywhere in the U.S. and (2) to eliminate the 120-day paper document retention period. According to the notice, The changes proposed in this document are intended to conform CBP's recordkeeping requirements to reflect modern business practices whereby documents are often generated, stored and transmitted in an electronic format...

Goodbye Ruby Tuesday

Posted on March 23, 2010
Today is Tuesday, March 23, 2010 and Customs and Border Protection has issued a Federal Register Notice implementing the Junta Anti-Democratic Efforts ("JADE") Act of 2008. First, can someone please stop the acronym madness in Congress? That is one of the most strained acronyms I've seen...

What I Learned at ICPA

Posted on March 22, 2010
It was great to be at the International Compliance Professionals Association meeting in Orlando last week. The information at the meeting is always good (although honestly some is better than other). The best thing, though, is the concentration of import and export geeks (and I mean that in the best possible way) together in one place talking about the details of what we do...

Old Friends

Posted on March 06, 2010
Today I kicked an old computer to the curb. Actually, I boxed it up and left it on my front step as a donation to a charity that collects old computers for schools. I started thinking that it would be cool to have all my old computers in a collection...

Monitor Classifications

Posted on March 05, 2010
BenQ America Corp. v. United States seeks to resolve the interesting question of how to differentiate between general purpose video monitors and monitors of data processing applications. The former products are classifiable in Heading 8528 while the latter are classifiable in 8471...

Patently Off Topic

Posted on March 04, 2010
To remind my faithful (and often retired) readers that I am still here and still looking out for their best interests, I offer this off topic post. Basically, it is a link to the blog post by Gary Odom on Patent Prospector. In the post, Odom dissects a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision involving the patentability of baseball cards that incorporate a small piece of "game worn" jersey...

A Few Things

Posted on February 21, 2010
I know things have really slowed down here when my family complains that I am not posting often enough. I have not done a completely off-topic post in a while. And, the on-topic world has been personally fairly busy of late while at the same time not particularly full of interesting developments...

A Case of Note

Posted on February 21, 2010
LeMans Corp. v. United StatesAt what point does specialized clothing become sports equipment? I thought this question was decided in a Federal Circuit case involving Bauer-Nike ice hockey pants back in 2004. Apparently, I was wrong about that.This case involves clothing designed exclusively for use while engaged in "power riding sports...

What Did Brown Do Wrong?

Posted on February 10, 2010
I'm going to do this quickly to get it off my chest. In United States v. UPS Customhouse Brokerage, the United States sought to impose monetary penalties on UPS for failing to exercise the required level of supervision with respect to its brokering activities...

Totes Tossed

Posted on February 07, 2010
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed the decision of the Court of International dismissing Totes-Isotoner Corp. v. United States. As in the decision from the CIT, this case turns more on technical issues concerning the pleading of the case than it does on the merits...

Blog Update

Posted on February 04, 2010
By that title, I mean this is an update about the blog. My routine in the morning is to check the Federal Register for agency updates and the Court of International Trade and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit pages for new cases. I also have Google alerts for relevant topics...

Learning Moments

Posted on January 22, 2010
United States v. Tip Top Pant, Inc and Saad Nigri is an interesting case from the Court of International Trade that provides all kinds of useful lessons. The facts are that Tip Top imported shorts from Mexico and made a claim for duty-free treatment under NAFTA...

Ford Focus on NAFTA

Posted on January 14, 2010
For purposes of keeping readers of this blog informed, here is a meat and potatoes summary of Ford Motor Company v. U.S., a decision relating to the documentation needed for a successful post-entry NAFTA claim. For now, I am going to leave my person views out of this...

First Sale Data

Posted on January 11, 2010
Because I have previously discussed my views on the Customs and Border Protection proposal to interpret the valuation statute to do away with the so-called first sale rule, I probably should have mentioned that the International Trade Commission has published its congressionally mandated report on the topic...

Friends Don't Let Friends Classify

Posted on January 05, 2010
I have been in a single ballroom containing a very large segment of the lawyers working in the customs law field. Basically, we all know or know of each other. I bring this up, because I might be about the piss off some friends and former colleagues. So be it...

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