In a case that could have a profound impact on the trade community, compliance officers, business owners, and others can now be held personally liable under the customs penalty statute1 for fraudulently or negligently providing information on imports. Under this decision, import managers and compliance personnel can now be held personally liable in circumstances other than fraud for imports that violate US custom laws.
In United States v. Trek Leather Inc. and Harish Shadadpuri (Trek Leather), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sitting en banc found a corporate officer of an importer of record personally liable for gross negligence penalties where the importer understated the value of the goods. Slip. Op. No. 2011-1527 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 16, 2014). In its decision, the Court focused on those who “introduce” goods into US commerce — potentially anyone who creates documents or facilitates documents being used to enter goods into US commerce.2
This has been excerpted from a 22 September 2014 article by David R. Hamill, David Salkeld and Tina Termei of Arent Fox LLP and is available in its entirety at:
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=501c6c01-ae34-44b0-bdc3-a71b6232f349