Importer Says Clerical Error Meant It Paid More Than $2M in Additional Duties
Importer Ansell Healthcare Products brought a July 3 complaint against the United States saying that, after a “series of clerical errors,” it paid almost $2.4 million in duties and fees on three reconciliation entries when it should have only paid $461.01 (Ansell Healthcare Products v. United States, CIT # 20-003922).
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The multi-figure difference in duties occurred, Ansell said, after its customs broker, DSV Panalpina, made a “series of clerical errors” that resulted in the value of the three reconciliation entries being drastically overvalued.
In particular, it said, DSV duplicated entry lines and included more lines from other entries than the 31 consumption entries covered by the three reconciliation entries in question.
Ansell said that the original 31 consumption entries had been valued at $1,531,817. The importer calculated that, due to “an ‘uplift’ factor,” this would have increased to $1,594,393.81 by the time their value had to be reconciled. It told DSV to report this as the value, but DSV instead reported that the entries’ total original value was $60,285,712 and their reconciled value was $63,571,157.64.
When CBP calculated Ansell’s new fees, it accepted DSV’s numbers and subtracted the amount of duties and fees Ansell had previously paid from DSV’s calculated reconciled value for the three entries, Ansell said. Instead, CBP should have compared DSV’s numbers with the original numbers, it said.
DSV filed a protest with CBP, but the protest was denied, Ansell said. CBP told the customs broker that the “[i]nformation provided to support claim is inaccurate.”
“Entries were rejected 03/19/2019 for money mismatch prior to liquidation (01/17/2020),” CBP said. “Original recon amounts were never tendered for entries.”
Ansell asked the trade court to order a refund of $2,359,807.94 plus interest.