International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 22-26 in case they were missed.
The House-preferred measure to address CBP’s strategy on duty evasion, the PROTECT Act, should serve as the “bedrock” of Customs Reauthorization this Congress, said trade associations including customs brokers, retailers, and importers in a recent letter to Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La. (here). Boustany introduced the legislation in past sessions of Congress (see 12121035).
CBP San Francisco will hold a seminar on "Steel Identification, Classification and Trade Law" on July 29-30, it said in an information notice. The seminar, which will include presentations from technical, commercial and legal experts from the industry, is meant to "increase the knowledge level" on steel imports for CBP officials, the trade and customs brokers, it said. The seminar will be at the Port of San Francisco, 555 Battery St., San Francisco.
CBP will begin use of a "revised Downtime Authorization form" at the Port of New York to avoid some of the problems related to the use of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) for air manifests, said the CBP's New York office in a June 19 informational pipeline. The form "authorizes both transfers and releases in a single authorization, thereby eliminating a duplication in processing," said the agency. The ACE manifest system "continues to experience some performance issues in transmitting messages to the trade community," though it is "steadily improving," said CBP. The New York work-around differs from the revised procedures in Los Angeles (see 1506190022).
Customs reauthorization legislation now being considered in Congress includes provisions with "little regard to the practical effectiveness of these measures or their impact on trade flows," the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America told the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees in a June 18 letter (here). "As conference discussions begin on H.R. 644, NCBFAA urges you to revisit these critical issues and address the need for balance between facilitation and enforcement so that this is a bill we can all stand behind," said the association. It's still unclear when conference negotiations to resolve differences between the House and Senate customs bills will begin (see 1506220012).
Canada continues to work in conjunction with the U.S. to broker critical trade pacts, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and World Trade Organization agreements, but the U.S. is still troubled by weak Canadian intellectual property and trade-inhibiting supply management regulations, said U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke at the 2015 Canadian Trade Policy Review in Geneva (here). The TPR is the first for Canada since 2011.
The Court of International Trade on June 12 gave CBP the go-ahead to set heavy bonding requirements for an importer of garlic from China (here), after putting the agency’s decision on hold in October. CBP had required Kwo Lee to post a single transaction bond at the $4.71/kg antidumping duty rate for the China-wide entity, rather than the $0.35/kg rate in effect for garlic produced and exported by the Chinese company listed on Kwo Lee’s entry documentation. Despite initially issuing an injunction to save Kwo Lee from bankruptcy while it considered the facts of the case (see 1410220063), CIT ruled that CBP was justified in its distrust that the garlic was actually produced by the exporter in question.
The past year’s court rulings on corporate employee liability for customs violations has sparked deliberation in the trade community over what Trek Leather means for import compliance professionals. Customs lawyers warn of the possibility that unsuspecting corporate officers and compliance managers could find themselves subject to penalties and fines, although some attorneys say those concerns are overstated. Trade associations are busy deciphering how importers should address any liability arising from the case, including whether they should offer employees indemnification or insurance. However, creating insurance covering employee liability for customs violations is fraught with difficulties, and lawyers and insurers interviewed said no such policies exist as of yet.
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., introduced legislation on June 4 to expand the Taft-Hartley Act, the benchmark labor relations measure signed into law in 1947, in order to deter future slowdowns and shutdowns at U.S. ports. Gardner introduced the Protecting Orderly and Responsible Transit of Shipments (PORTS) Act, S-1519, months after West Coast port operations ground to a halt over a contract dispute between port operators and labor (see 1502120049). The text of the bill isn’t yet public.
CBP will be keeping a close eye on testing of the Automated Commercial Environment and will be conducting targeted outreach to test specific scenarios as its Nov. 1 deadline approaches, an agency spokeswoman told International Trade Today in response to questions on how the postponement of ACE implementation until Oct. 31 for several quota-related entry types affects the agency’s approach. The delay leaves only one day for live filing before ACE becomes mandatory and the Automated Commercial System goes offline, causing some concern among customs brokers and software developers (see 1506030054).