Customs & Trade Facilitation

Evelyn served in both legal offices of the U.S. Customs Service (now Customs & Border Protection (CBP)). She is a recognized leader in customs law and has served for decades as a private sector advisor to the U.S. Government on Customs and Trade Facilitation. She has testified before the U.S. Congress on behalf of industry groups regarding customs matters. She has also worked with clients seeking customs legislation. She routinely helps clients, which include international traders, transportation and logistics companies and customs brokers and freight forwarders, comply with U.S. customs laws and the myriad of laws that CBP enforces. She also defends clients in penalty matters and litigates cases before the U.S. Court of International Trade, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Evelyn can help clients on all aspects of customs laws and other laws that CBP enforces from trade compliance to homeland security to import safety, whether involving policy concerns or a regulatory or litigation matter. Over the years she has worked on the entire spectrum of customs law and regulation, including entry requirements, tariff classification, valuation of imported merchandise, rules of origin and country of origin marking, border enforcement of intellectual property rights and special duties such as anti-dumping and countervailing duties. She has also counseled clients regarding eligibility for preferential duty treatment under the various free trade agreements such as NAFTA as well as duty preference programs from GSP to AGOA. She has assisted clients who use duty deferral or remission programs such as duty drawback or temporary importation under bond and counsels her clients in regard to the regulatory requirements associated with using Foreign Trade Zones. Evelyn is a leading lawyer on vessel repair duties, having counseled U.S.-flag operators for decades on all aspects of this law as well as having successfully challenged CBP’s duty assessments numerous times in court. She has worked with clients on the customs aspects of protection of their intellectual property rights from infringing imports, whether before CBP or the U.S. International Trade Commission, where she served as a legal advisor to a Commissioner.

As to compliance, Evelyn can help clients manage their compliance efforts, developing and improving internal controls, record keeping and customs compliance programs. She has represented clients numerous times in audits by CBP. She has routinely defended clients in penalty matters, whether in the civil administrative or criminal context.