Food Producers Ramp Up Efforts To Press CBP On Outstanding AD Bonds

摘要

U.S. producers of honey, canned mushrooms, garlic and crawfish that have been engaged in a longstanding fight over $700 million in unpaid antidumping (AD) duties on Chinese imports through 2006 are intensifying their efforts to force Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect these duties before a six-year statute of limitations expires. At issue are imports that entered under four AD orders between 2000 and 2006 where duties were secured with bonds as opposed to cash deposits. Petitioners argue the importers who took out these bonds were largely shell importing companies set up by Chinese firms and have long since folded. They charge that CBP has not done enough to collect the outstanding duties from the surety companies that issued the bonds, and that when the statute of limitations runs out, CBP will face obstacles to pursuing legal action against these surety companies for repayment. The statute of limitations runs out six years after the AD duties are finally assessed by CBP, which is typically two years after the goods actually entered and the bonds were issued. This means that surety companies could cite the statute of limitations as a legal defense on any new lawsuit filed by CBP to collect on bonds issued before mid-2004.