Penalties, Seizures, Other Customs Enforcement Efforts Drop in FY 2022

U.S. Customs and Border Protection saw numerous major indicators of its trade enforcement efforts decline in fiscal year 2022.

According to statistics recently made available by CBP, the number of shipments detained related to withhold release orders was the only one of the specified indicators that saw an increase in FY 2022, and a significant one at that (63.2 percent). Even so, the value of cargo subject to those detentions fell slightly (4.1 percent).

In every other listed category – from the number of audits completed and penalties issued, to the number of seizures of violative goods, to the number and trade value of investigations into antidumping and countervailing duty evasion – CBP saw decreases from the previous year.

Though it is not entirely clear what caused these declines, it is evident that CBP enforcement efforts continue to have a substantial impact on the trade community. As always, conducting an import compliance review can help companies avoid or mitigate those impacts.

	FY 2020	FY 2021	FY 2022
Completed audits	466	442	430
Collections from audits	$44.6 million	$132.2 million	$77.7 million
Trade penalties issued	2,309	2,394	2,121
Trade liquidated damages	19,612	19,834	18,667
Penalty/liquidated damage collections	$20.1 million	$21.7 million	$19.3 million
Trade seizures	73,708	83,402	46,111
IPR seizures	26,490	27,105	20,813
MSRP of IPR seizures	$1.3 billion	$3.3 billion	$2.9 billion
Import safety seizures	8,208	9,145	4,484
Value of import safety seizures	$12.7 million	$105.5 million	$62.4 million
EAPA investigations	64	48	35
Value/lost revenue identified in EAPA	$215 million	$112 million	$97 million
Forced labor WROs	13	7	6
Detained shipments related to WROs	324	1,469	2,398
Value of cargo on WRO detentions	$49.8 million	$486 million	$466 million

 

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