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Forced Labor
CBP is the primary U.S. agency tasked with combating forced labor in international trade. It is the only agency with legal authority to take enforcement action and prevent entry into domestic commerce of goods produced with forced labor. CBP combats forced labor by issuing Withhold Release Orders (WROs) and Findings, and enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), and Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Goods subject to WROs and Findings, UFLPA, and CAATSA status cannot be entered at any ports of the U.S.
Palm oil importer Virtus Nutrition's wish for an expedited briefing schedule has hit a snag, with the Department of Justice filing its opposition to the importer's application for an order directing the U.S. government to show cause why an expedited litigation schedule should not be entered in the Court of International Trade. Due to the case involving a "complex, novel legal issue" and a longer discovery period for the case, DOJ argued Virtus' request for a shortened litigation timeline should be nixed. The case involves Virtus' more than $2 million in palm oil imports from Malaysia held up by CBP over suspicions of having been made with forced labor, in violation of a Withhold Release Order (Virtus Nutrition, LLC v. United States, CIT # 21-00165).
Arent Fox is launching a Forced Labor team led by Angela Santos to assist companies in implementing forced labor compliance procedures, the firm announced in a May 12 alert. Given CBP's increased focus on forced labor in global supply chains, the need for proper import compliance and supply chain due diligence is at an all-time high. The new team seeks to help with that compliance and offers other services such as protests and petitions for release of seized merchandise, forced labor codes of conduct, supplier forced labor agreements, supply chain evaluations, customs questionnaires, forced labor audits and protest, forfeiture and customs penalty cases, according to the alert.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 12 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
Efforts by Uniqlo to prove that no connection exists between a shipment of men's shirts and cotton from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in China were insufficient, CBP said in a May 10 ruling. CBP stopped a shipment at the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach in January, about a month after the agency issued a withhold release order on all cotton products made by XPCC (see 2012020071).
Palm oil importer Virtus Nutrition, LLC wants an expedited ruling on itsmore than $2 million in palm oil imports held up by CBP, filing a motion for assignment of a judge and an application for an order directing the U.S. government to show cause why an expedited litigation schedule should not be entered on May 12. Due to storage fees of over $35,000 a month agreed to between Virtus and the port director of CBP for the Port of San Francisco/Oakland, the importer wants to quickly get a ruling on the case and free up the palm oil imports.
A New York lumber distributor sent a letter May 11 to the Commerce Department urging negotiations to begin on a new softwood lumber agreement, citing rising prices and market instability since the previous antidumping and countervailing duty suspension agreements expired in October 2015. “While this agreement is not the ultimate solution to price volatility, reenactment of the agreement will contribute to needed stability in the marketplace,” Belknap Lumber said in the letter, which was added by Commerce to the record of ongoing AD/CVD administrative reviews on softwood lumber from Canada on May 12.