On December 12, 2016, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced a final rule allowing for electronic liquidation notices. The rule, which will become effective on January 14, 2017, enables CBP to post “official notices of liquidation, suspension of liquidation, and extension of liquidation” to the CBP website.

For most importers (and their sureties), this rule will change the way in which they can access official notices of liquidation, re-liquidation, extension, and suspension. Instead of posting weekly official bulletin notices of liquidation and re-liquidation at each US custom house and station and mailing official notices of extension and suspension, CBP will publish notices on the CBP website once this rule is in effect. CBP will also discontinue mailing all paper courtesy notices of liquidation and re-liquidation with this rule. Because the vast majority of importers (and their sureties) rely on the electronic courtesy notices of liquidation, re-liquidation, extension, and suspension currently provided, CBP estimates this rule’s transition to electronic official notice publications will only affect a small portion of importers.

As the final rule does affect current 19 CFR regulations, there will be amendments made to the following CBP regulations: 19 CFR Part 159 (Antidumping, Countervailing duties, Customs duties and inspection, Foreign currencies) and 19 CFR Part 173 (Administrative practice and procedure, Customs duties and inspection).

The text of the final rule can be found on the Federal Register’s Website. For questions, or to further discuss the rule, please contact Deringer’s Compliance Department at (518) 298-8281.