Sunseeker International and Sunseeker USA pleaded guilty to two violations of the Lacey Act and agreed to pay a $200,000 fine for using illegally logged Burmese teak on multiple luxury yachts imported into the U.S.
The Boise Cascade Company, a publicly traded manufacturer of wood products, pleaded guilty to felony violation of the Lacey Act for partaking in a scheme to evade countervailing and antidumping duties by purchasing illegally imported hardwood plywood from China.
Importers and exporters must come to terms with the notion that the U.S. government and other governments already have so much cargo data at their disposal that could help the governments to enforce trade and prevent forced labor violations or illegal transshipping, according to Ana Hinojosa, executive director of government and regulatory affairs for Oritain, a supply chain tech company that tracks origin data.
The funding bills that passed the House this week and head to the Senate did not increase funding for finding imports made with forced labor, but increased funding at Homeland Security Investigations by $8 million to "provide additional forensic and analytical support for child exploitation and forced labor investigations."
CBP should write a report on whether self-initiation of cases under the Enforce and Protect Act "would allow CBP to pursue more circumvention cases and extend existing investigations deeper into supply chains fully and whether such authority would result in greater enforcement," wrote the Senate Appropriations Committee, in its instructions to CBP as part of its DHS annual appropriations bill. It directed the agency to compile the report within 90 days of the bill's enactment.
The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will stop accepting paper submissions of the Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) 505 or 505B form as of Jan. 1, 2026, APHIS said in an emailed alert. Filers will need to submit their declarations using CBP's ACE or the USDA-APHIS Lacey Act Web Governance System (LAWGS). Those who submit a paper declaration after Jan. 1 will be violating the Lacey Act, APHIS said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The Fish and Wildlife Service is affirming as final a 2016 interim rule that would essentially ban the import of all species of salamanders because of a lethal fungus that the salamanders can carry and spread among the salamander population, it said in a Federal Register notice.
CBP created Harmonized System Update 2420 on Dec. 27, containing 5,459 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 905 Harmonized Tariff Schedule Records, according to a Dec. 27 cargo systems message.
CBP created Harmonized System Update 2419 on Nov. 29, containing 6,479 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 1,487 Harmonized Tariff Schedule records. HSU 2419 includes the AL1 tariff flag for Phase VII of the Lacey Act provisions for certain imported plant and wood products, effective Dec. 1 (see 2409200018). The HSU also reflects the completion of the flagging updates to 1700 HTS codes to remove the AM7 flag. This removal process started Oct. 18 and is now complete.