Transportation & Supply Chain

Check out the latest episode of The Justice Insiders—a podcast hosted by Husch Blackwell partner Gregg Sofer—where we explore the intersection of international trade law and government investigations and enforcement, particularly in connection with Russia.

I previously appeared on Gregg’s podcast during the first quarter of 2022, and we pick up that

We are pleased to announce that our team’s fourth-annual international trade law year-in-review report was published just before the New Year. In it, we take a detailed look at how 2022 played out and explore how 2023 might develop. As companies continue to work through the challenges associated with supply chain dislocations, geopolitical turmoil, and

On June 13th, Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) released its Operational Guidance For Importers to prepare companies for the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (“UFLPA”). UFLPA enforcement is set to take effect June 21st and will apply a rebuttable presumption standard to imports tied in whole or in part to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or entities identified by the U.S. government on the soon to be published UFLPA Entity List.

Some commercial truck traffic could be moving again at one border bridge as late this afternoon. On April 14, 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced an agreement with Nuevo León Governor Samuel Alejandro García Sepúlveda for heightened inspections on Mexico’s side of the border at the Columbia bridge and the lifting of increased security measures

Husch Blackwell’s third-annual international trade law year-in-review report provides a detailed look at how 2021 played out and takes a peek at how 2022 might develop. As companies begin to strategize on what a second year of the Biden administration will bring, we hope the framework presented in our report will help your business maximize potential cost savings and minimize potential risks as enforcement activity continues to rise and supply chains remain under pressure well into the coming year.

Don’t Forget the Chassis in the Chase for the Cure.

A new level of frustration has arisen from the ocean shipper ranks during this “post-COVID” period. Shipments from Asia to the U.S. are experiencing extreme difficulties in getting their cargo delivered, mainly due to the acute shortage of chassis to effect delivery of their containers on the U.S. side. The painful example of this is the BNSF current experience with Lot W. Aside from the impact to the importer in not being able to access its cargo and experiencing serious damage to its business, it is also likely to face serious demurrage charges from the ocean carrier. This is on top of having just experienced a quadrupling (or more) of the base FAK per container rates, and the ocean carrier choices to leave agricultural commodities sitting at West Coast U.S. ports, favoring the shipment of empty containers opting to position equipment for the lucrative Asia to U.S. trade.

As a result of the contagious ocean carrier saga, recently the subject of a Presidential Executive Order dealing with anti-competitive developments in ocean shipping, the contagion has now fixated on rail ramps where intermodal deliveries of ocean freight moves has come to a virtual standstill. At least that is the case at Lot W.

A

The below e-mail recently received by the author paints the picture we are seeing a thousand fold in the current ocean shipping marketplace in the inbound/outbound Asia trade lanes which underscores the serious disconnect currently between ocean common carriers and shippers in these U.S trade lanes:

Carlos:

We are seeing examples where there was

According to media reports, a massive 400-meter container ship operated by Evergreen Marine Corp. in Taiwan, the Ever Given, became stuck in the Suez Canal after apparently running aground due to high winds from a sandstorm. As a result, potentially hundreds of ships cannot pass on either side of the Suez Canal