Mulai Lagi

I am not picking on Ford. It just happens that it has been the subject of a lot of activity lately and since I am not involved, I can talk about it. Plus, it has been interesting. Note to past Commenter Paul: Feel free to fill in gaps or disagree. The first of the recent Ford cases does not come from the Court of International Trade. Rather it is from the U.S. District Court in Michigan. The case comes out of an action for declaratory judgment Ford filed ahead of Customs suing it in El Paso for recordkeeping violations relating to NAFTA entries. The plaintiff in a declaratory judgment case essentially asks the court to declare its rights relative to the defendant. When allowed, declaratory judgment often takes the wind out of a potential suit and result in settlement. Ford assumes it is going to get sued for failing to produce backup documents supporting NAFTA certificates of origin for goods from a related party in Mexico. It assumes this based on the fact that it has received a m...

It's been a lousy summer, cycling wise. I have not had many opportunities to ride and my waistline is complaining about it. A got a flat about three weeks ago and did not get around to fixing it until Sunday. I hope to make up some miles in the fall, but I am not promising myself or anyone else. In the meantime, there were some interesting cycling stories in the paper (by which I mean the Chicago Tribune) this week. The first was another story on the sudden popularity of fixed gear bikes. Read that here: Look, Ma! No brakes Chicago Tribune. I may have mentioned that I final rode one of these. It belongs to my nephew who seems to be smack in the demographic in which fixies are popular. He is a 22 year old college kid living in Chicago. Riding it was disorienting at first. Even the process of getting on the bike required additional though. My usual habit of rolling forward while jumping on and then clicking into the pedals did not work because the pedals did not stop wh...

Liquidation is an odd concept in many ways. Liquidation is the final accounting of the amount of duties, fees, and taxes owed on an entry of merchandise. Each entry is liquidated individually. If your salary were subject to liquidation, you would have to file a tax return every pay day and wait for a tax bill or refund on each return. It is kind of crazy. Customs is experimenting with tools to move away from the entry-centric process. The programs include ACS Reconciliation and Periodic Monthly Payments and Statements. But, in today's environment, it is still important to understand liquidation because the liquidation of an entry triggers a number of deadlines. The most important deadline being the time to file a protest to challenge a decision of the Port Director. Two recent Court of International Trade Cases have taken a look at the importance of liquidation and an importer's obligation to track liquidations carefully. In Gerdau Ameristeel Corp. v. United States,...

I am just back from St. Johns . As it turns out, that is Newfoundland and Labrador , not the U.S. Virgin Islands. When I was first approached about being on a customs law panel for the CBA, I had hopes that it was the Caribbean Bar Association calling. Turns out, it was my friends in Canada . Much to my dismay, I did not spend enough time in St. Johns . My seatmate on the Montreal to St. Johns leg (a relatively young lawyer in the Canadian Department of Justice) piqued my interest with suggestions for side trips and restaurants. Approaching the landing, I could see the rocky coast and many small islands jutting into the Atlantic . It reminded me of summers spent with my family in Maine and New Hampshire . The Canadian maritime provinces are surprisingly remote from the U.S. east coast. To put it into perspective, consider that St. Johns' time zone is two and a half hours ahead of Chicago . When I landed, I discovered anunexpectedlyy rugged and rustic town with a...