The Export Administration Regulations (EAR), at Part 736, General Order No. 2 of Supplement No. 1, prohibits export of all items covered by the EAR to Syria unless they are licensed shipments of food or medicine. This broad prohibition applies to all goods within the United States or U.S.-...
Trade Blog
Friday, December 17, 2010 - 13:21
Friday, December 17, 2010 - 13:12
CBP, at the link below, has posted new guidance concerning customs bond policies and procedures. It notes that the Continuous Transaction Bond program has been centralized at CBP’s Revenue Division in Indianapolis, Indiana.
All continuous and term bond submissions, including continuous...
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - 10:00
Due process requires that a professional license, such as that held by a Customs broker, cannot be revoked by an issuing agency without a hearing. The Regulations take this into account and provide for certain procedural safeguards that protect a broker from arbitrary license revocation....
Sunday, August 15, 2010 - 07:18
The Obama Administration’s ongoing effort to simplify the complex maze of export regulatory regimes, dubbed the Export Control Reform initiative, has given rise to a proposed amendment to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”), published by the Department of State on August 11,...
Thursday, July 22, 2010 - 18:03
Importers that have contested CBP decisions are familiar with the protest process. In essence, a protest is a filing through which an importer challenges a CBP decision and advances legal arguments to further its cause. Importers that are familiar with the protest process may also be familiar...
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - 11:21
Most trade intermediaries are familiar with the antiboycott provisions contained in Part 760 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). These regulations prohibit U.S. persons’ participation in or cooperation with the Arab League’s ongoing boycott of Israel. Subpart (d) of Part 760.2...
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - 17:43
On June 2, 2010, in Honda of America Mfg., Inc. v. United States, the Federal Circuit shed light on a question that occasionally stumps those in the trade community, namely: When should a part be classified under the HTSUS independently, and when should it be classified as a part of a...
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - 08:04
In 2008, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act became law. To implement the Act’s mandate to develop targeting methods to improve consumer safety, CBP and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have joined together to create the Import Safety Commercial Targeting and Analysis...
Friday, May 14, 2010 - 17:34
Did you know that contested customs duties must be paid before a protest denial can be challenged in court? On May 6, 2010, the Court of International Trade (“CIT”) issued a decision that illustrates the importance of properly paying duties in advance of filing suit.
The plaintiff in...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - 18:20
On April 29, 2010, the Federal Maritime Commission published a proposed rulemaking to implement its February 18, 2010, decision to relieve licensed NVOCCs from the costs and burdens of tariff rate publication. The April 29 rulemaking promulgated new and amended regulations that, when given...
Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 21:19
Until the Rotterdam Rules take hold, we will continue to examine COGSA cases worthy of note. A case involving the dropping of a $4,000,000 yacht due to a collapsed crane is noteworthy in our book, especially when the ocean carrier attempts to limit its liability to $500, and the case turns on...
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - 13:34
Some may not realize that data on inbound cargo declarations, CF 1302, is made public by CBP. Certain data contained on outbound manifest is also publicly available, such as the name and address of the shipper, general character of the cargo, number of packages and gross weight, name of vessel...
Sunday, March 28, 2010 - 21:38
On March 23, 2010, Customs and Border Protection issued a notice of proposed rulemaking wherein the agency proposes to amend certain of the Regulation’s recordkeeping requirements.
First, the proposed rulemaking would allow a broker to store his or her records at any location within the...
Monday, March 15, 2010 - 21:55
CBP’s Office of Regulations and Rulings, in a rulemaking notice of March 15, 2010, has proposed to amend the Code of Federal Regulations to discontinue the longstanding practice of mailing courtesy notices of liquidation to importers of record whose entries are filed by ABI. CBP has invited the...
Friday, February 19, 2010 - 19:04
On February 18, 2010, the Federal Maritime Commission voted to approve a proposed rulemaking that would exempt non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOCCs) from the longstanding requirement that they publish tariff rates. This move was motivated by the FMC’s desire to free NVOCCs from the...
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 21:45
By passing the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act of 1936 (COGSA), the United States adopted as domestic legislation the Hague Rules, which govern liability for loss in ocean carriage. At that time, ocean cargo was transported largely by barrel and crate, and bills of lading covered cargo from port...
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 22:15
Some readers may be aware that Customs, through a proposed rulemaking, attempted to abolish the first sale rule in 2008. The first sale rule is a method of determining transaction value, or the price paid or payable, for valuation and appraisement purposes. The rule provides that a U.S....
Sunday, January 24, 2010 - 20:46
The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) recently posted new export control guidance for freight forwarders on its website. BIS enforces the Export Administration Regulations, which regulate the conduct of both shippers and trade intermediaries and, among other things...
Monday, January 18, 2010 - 13:59
Our last Trade Blog post concerned whether an cargo re-loader could be made a party to a bill of lading by being named a consignee without its knowledge. Last week, another cargo case was handed down by the Second Circuit, APL Co. Pte Ltd. v. American President Lines, Ltd., that also...
Saturday, January 9, 2010 - 18:55
In December of 2009, CBP held its Trade Symposium in Washington, D.C. This post recaps some important points made at the Symposium regarding importer security filings. As we all know, on January 26, 2010, CBP will begin assessing liquidated damages for failure to file ISFs, late filings, or...
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 23:31
The 11th Circuit recently held that a freight re-loader named on bills of lading in connection with multiple shipments, but which had no actual knowledge that it appeared on the bills, was not responsible to a rail carrier for container demurrage. In Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v....
Friday, December 11, 2009 - 18:18
On December 3, 2009, CBP released intellectual property rights (IPR) seizure statistics for fiscal year 2009. A link to the report is below. We all know why CBP places a heavy emphasis on IPR seizures: they hurt the U.S. economy by robbing intellectual U.S. property rights holders of their...
Friday, December 4, 2009 - 18:11
On November 6, 2009, the Federal Maritime Commission issued an Order Granting Petition for Declaratory Order wherein it accepted the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia’s mandate that Ocean Transportation Intermediaries may utilize unlicensed agents to provide transportation services. By...
Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 10:43
In an October 2, 2009 statement to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, the acting Under Secretary of the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Daniel O. Hill, elaborated upon his agency’s role in enforcing the U.S. embargo on Iran and his agency’s...
Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 09:10
On September 21, 2009, CBP issued a final rule stating that final administrative appeals of customs broker exam results should be directed to the Assistant Commissioner of the Office of International Trade. The final rule is of interest because it recaps some of the post-9/11 history of Customs...
Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 08:55
Trade intermediaries and logistics providers are a hot target for the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which regulates exports of dual-use items from the United States, as well as the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls, which administers U.S. embargoes...
Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 08:42
A House of Representatives conference report dated October 15, 2009 allocates $42.8 billion for the Department of Homeland Security in fiscal year 2010. However, the report does more than allocate funds: it also demonstrates the government’s commitment to increased intellectual property rights...
Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 08:27
On October 15, 2009, the Court of International Trade, in Photonetics, Inc. v. United States, provided a useful refresher as to the “rule of relative specificity” set forth in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule at General Rule of Interpretation 3(a). The rule provides in relevant part that...
