Battery Importer Says CBP Unlawfully Excluded Entries Under UFLPA
CBP unlawfully excluded two entries of Camel Energy's battery imports for being made with forced labor in China's Xinjiang province, Camel Energy argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. The importer said it's not on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, and the batteries in its entries weren't "mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part using forced labor in the" Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) (Camel Energy v. United States, CIT # 25-00230).
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Camel Energy also faulted the agency for not making an admissibility determination for its two entries, leading to the company's protests to be deemed denied, "despite having months to do so."
The importer is the Michigan-based affiliate of Camel Group, which is a large manufacturing conglomerate that was added to the UFLPA Entity List for allegedly making its goods in Xinjiang with forced labor. Camel Group is challenging that designation at the trade court in a separate suit (see 2509300045).
Camel Energy said it imports "an enormous quantity of lead-acid batteries" into the U.S. However, since Aug. 21 alone, CBP has "detained or excluded 95 separate shipments of lead-acid batteries at multiple ports around in the United States." While the importer has responded to the notices of detention and protested the notices of exclusion for more than 65 of the shipments, it hasn't received a decision from CBP on any of them, the brief said.
The notice of detention for two specific entries says the goods are being detained "on suspicion of being made with forced labor and subject to the UFLPA," as being either made in whole or in part in XUAR or made by an entity on the UFLPA Entity List. Just eight days after issuing the notices of detention, CBP told Camel Energy the two entries were being excluded from entry. The importer said it wasn't given any prior notice of the agency's actions and that CBP didn't give the company the "30-day opportunity to respond to the notices of detention and submit evidence demonstrating the goods" weren't made by an entity on the UFLPA Entity List or made using forced labor in XUAR.
Camel Energy said this is "troubling," since it "has a history of successful protests against UFLPA detentions of its goods." Also troubling is the fact that the notices said the two entries were excluded two days after the notice of detention was issued, despite the fact that the notices of exclusion weren't sent until eight days after the detention notices were sent, the brief said.
Neither notice of exclusion explained why Camel Energy was given the full 30 days to respond to the detention notice or why the agency changed the entries from "detained" to "excluded" without the importer's "response and evidence," Camel Energy said. Nevertheless, the importer said it still filed "a plethora of arguments, evidence, and documents applicable to each entry individually proving" the batteries weren't made using forced labor or made by an entity on the UFLPA Entity List.
Camel Energy said it made several requests to CBP for the evidence the agency relied on to exclude the entries, "but CBP failed to respond to or outright ignored each and every request."