The Federal Maritime Commission will amend its civil penalty regulations and procedures to align them with changes made by the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022. The final rule, released March 17 and effective April 19, makes changes to the language in the FMC's regulations that allows the commission to be able to "order a refund of charges" in a charge complaint proceeding, it said. The FMC also said that if a refund of charges is ordered in addition to a civil penalty, the civil penalty must be reduced so that freight carriers do not pay more than the "actual injury" caused.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will be sharing information with Mexico about "the safety of biotech products," which is something the president of Mexico brought up repeatedly in explaining his decrees about genetically modified corn, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a Senate oversight hearing.
CBP has received a third "exception request" under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act seeking to rebut the presumption that goods with content from China's Xinjiang province were made with forced labor, CBP officials said at a press conference March 14. The agency is still working through all three requests received so far by the agency, the officials said. CBP announced it had received the first two in January (see 2301270078).
Importers need to look beyond the products specifically identified under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to any products with raw materials processed in China, as the country moves more and more production to the Xinjiang province, said Laura Murphy, a professor at Sheffield Hallam University, speaking at CBP's Forced Labor Technical Expo on March 15.
The State Department is encouraging importers to join legally binding agreements with labor unions that include mechanisms for workers and employers to ensure labor standards are being met and resolve labor disputes, preventing forced labor indicators in the supply chain, a State Department official said at a CBP event on forced labor on March 14.
A recent change to CBP's Part 111 customs broker regulations that requires client termination and reporting to CBP of intentional attempts by the client to defraud the government could conflict with existing prior disclosure laws and put the broker-importer relationship into conflict, Sandra Bell, a DLA Piper trade lawyer and former CBP official, said in a March 9 blog post.
The U.S. asked the Mexican government to review a Unique Fabricating, Inc. plant in Queretaro, Mexico, based on allegations that the factory is obstructing workers’ freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, the Department of Labor said in a March 6 news release. Mexican labor union Transformacion Sindical recently filed a complaint under the USMCA Rapid Response Mechanism alleging Unique Fabricating, a U.S.-based company, denied it access to the facility and interfered with organizing efforts, DOL said.
Beginning April 1, Maersk will begin invoicing shippers directly for detention charges instead of charging motor carriers by default, it said in a March 6 client advisory. "This change will support our aim to provide timely and accurate detention invoicing to the correct party," the advisory said.
There have been no known security breaches from Chinese-made cranes at U.S. ports, the American Association of Port Authorities said in a news release March 8. The statement came in response to a Wall Street Journal report that some U.S. officials were concerned that Chinese-made cranes, specifically cranes from Chinese company ZPMC, could be a spying tool for the Chinese government and a way for the Chinese government to disrupt the flow of goods. ZPMC now makes 80% of ship-to-shore cranes at U.S. ports, a U.S. official said, according to the report.
Two Canadian ministers will "closely review" proposed voluntary “Product of USA” labeling regulations for meat, poultry and egg products issued by the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service March 7 (see 2303070053), making sure “that new definitions and rules allow farmers, processors and consumers in both countries to continue to benefit from efficient, stable and competitive markets,” their joint statement March 7 said. Minister of Agriculture Marie-Claude Bibeau and Minister of Trade Mary Ng also said they would oppose “any proposition from the United States to renew a mandatory country of origin [labeling] system for pork and beef.”