U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently provided an update on its efforts under the Enforce and Protect Act, which aims to prevent importers from evading the increasing number of antidumping and countervailing duties on imported goods.
Under CBP regulations implementing the EAPA, any interested party, including competing importers and federal government agencies, may submit allegations that AD/CVD duties are being evaded; e.g., by misrepresenting the goods’ true country of origin, submitting false or incorrect shipping and entry documentation, or misreporting the goods’ physical characteristics. CBP has broad authority to investigate these claims and can impose initial remedial measures that can interrupt a supply chain in as little as 90 days. Any final determination of evasion may be met with not only AD/CVD duties but also other enforcement measures such as civil or criminal investigations.
CBP states that from Jan. 20 through Aug. 8 it uncovered more than $400 million in unpaid AD/CVD duties through EAPA investigations and identified 89 cases with reasonable suspicion of duty evasion. However, the agency did not indicate whether these figures represent an increase over previous periods.
CBP also recently investigated the largest EAPA case in its history, encompassing “23 U.S. importers and a network of Chinese shell companies funneling goods through Indonesia, South Korea, and Vietnam.” CBP enforcement teams carried out port inspections, analyzed trade data, and conducted on-the-ground verifications in Indonesia and Taiwan. “Every importer investigated was found in violation,” CBP said, “more companies were exposed, and new evasion tactics [were] uncovered.” More than $250 million in revenue owed has been identified so far, a figure expected to rise “as we uncover additional importers.”
CBP notes that results of this and other EAPA investigations are available on the EAPA website.
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