CBP has shifted its forced labor enforcement efforts to the automotive and aerospace sectors in the first quarter of FY 2025, according to analysis from Kharon, a risk analytics platform.
Altana, a New York-based, AI-informed global supply chain mapper, has determined that as many as 18,210 companies across the world could be exposed to corporate entities that DHS earlier this month flagged for potentially violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (see 2501140054). Of that group of more than 18,000 companies, 2,223 are U.S. companies.
Three Indian cotton suppliers linked to 60 global brands sourced cotton from farms that use forced labor, advocacy group Transparentem said in a report published Jan. 27. The investigation leading to the report found evidence of child labor, debt bondage, withholding of wages, and abusive working conditions at farms in Madhya Pradesh, India.
A lawyer for Shein submitted a letter to the U.K. Parliament denying its U.S.-bound products contain any Chinese cotton. The letter, sent Jan. 20 after several British lawmakers in a hearing earlier this month expressed concern about forced labor in the company's supply chains, said that the company complies with the laws and regulations of the countries in which it sells.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 13-19:
Chinese manufacturer Camel Group Co. took to the Court of International Trade last week to contest its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, arguing that the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force "utterly disregarded, ignored and trampled" its due process rights in a "flawed and poorly executed process." The company said FLETF illicitly conducted the process in the shadows, refusing to offer it access to any of the evidence used against the company, and that the decision to deny its petition to be removed from the list wasn't backed by substantial evidence (Camel Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).
Foreign workers from Bangladesh are preparing to sue Sony and Panasonic in U.S. court over forced labor conditions at their former employer in Malaysia, Kawaguchi Manufacturing, a plastics supplier for the two companies.
CBP processed more than 2.8 million entry summaries in December, valued at more than $290 billion, according to the agency's monthly update. That identified estimated duties of nearly $7.4 billion to be collected by the U.S. government.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released a trade strategy to combat forced labor, which includes policy successes during the Biden administration and "areas for potential future action" for the next administration, it announced in a Jan. 13 news release.
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