A recently filed lawsuit in D.C. federal court seeks to compel CBP testimony in a long-running case brought against an importer by a company founded to file customs fraud lawsuits. Customs Fraud Investigations says CBP is refusing to send an officer to testify in a False Claims Act whistleblower suit in Eastern Pennsylvania U.S. District Court on whether Victaulic failed to properly mark its pipe imports, and should have paid marking duties (see 1610060030).
The Department of Justice and Temple St. Clair reached a $796,000 settlement to resolve allegations of civil fraud, the DOJ said in a news release. Temple St. Clair, "a fine jewelry designer, manufacturer, and importer based in New York, New York," was alleged to have undervalued its goods at import, the DOJ said. The company's senior leadership also allegedly carried jewelry, including a pendant valued at $83,000, into the U.S. for commercial purposes without declaration, the DOJ said. The lawsuit was initiated by a whistleblower under the False Claims Act, it said.
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Acting Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio pointed to the whistleblower provisions in the False Claims Act as an important method for enforcing customs laws. The Justice Department is using the FCA "to prevent companies from flouting our customs laws," he said in a June 14 speech at an American Bar Association event on qui tam enforcement. "Over the last five years, the Department has recovered more than $100 million in settlements involving the evasion or underpayment of import duties for a wide variety of merchandise." Panuccio said DOJ will also use the FCA "against any entities involved in the opioid distribution chain who engage in the abuse and illegal diversion of opioids -- from pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors, to pharmacies, to pain management clinics and physicians."
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 4-8 in case they were missed.
A federal court recently dismissed a whistleblower lawsuit filed over pipes imported from China that were allegedly misclassified in order to avoid antidumping and countervailing duties. The May 23 decision in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division was highlighted in a Hogan Lovells blog post. The False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit was filed by Roger Schagrin, a lawyer with experience in international trade and the steel industry, in 2014 against LDR Industries. Plaintiffs in successful whistleblower lawsuits involving defrauding the government are allowed to receive a portion of the recovered funds.
A recently announced Justice Department policy limits the circumstances under which companies can be held liable for violating agency guidance documents. Issued Jan. 25, the policy memo prohibits DOJ lawyers from enforcing agency guidance documents as if they were binding in “affirmative civil enforcement cases,” including False Claims Act lawsuits. The new policy extends across government a policy adopted in November that prohibited DOJ from issuing binding guidance on its own behalf or enforcing its own guidance as binding.
A U.K. retailer, and its chief executive, that allegedly split shipments to avoid duties settled a whistleblower lawsuit against the company for about $900,000, the Justice Department said in a news release. The company, Pure Collection, and its CEO Samantha Harrison were said to separate single orders exceeding the de minimis value threshold into multiple smaller parcels in order to evade customs duties on imports over the de minimis level (see 1709080037). "This Settlement Agreement is neither an admission of liability by Pure nor a concession by the United States that its claims are not well founded," the parties said in the court filing.
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Another dorm room furniture importer will pay $500,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleges it misclassified bedroom furniture from China in order to evade antidumping and countervailing duties. Home Furnishings Resource Group purportedly entered its dressers and chests of drawers as non-bedroom furniture to save on the 216% AD duty in effect at the time. The False Claims Act suit was filed by University Loft, the plaintiff in several other whistleblower suits claiming dorm furniture misclassification.