Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act – Comment Period Open until March 10, 2022

President Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) into law on December 23, 2021. (Click here and here for previous articles on this topic.) On January 24, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a “Notice Seeking Public Comments,” soliciting responses to 18 different questions covering implementation, enforcement, and compliance with the UFLPA. Several questions seek information about the issues likely to be most important to U.S. companies that source materials from the People’s Republic of China, including:

the types of due diligence, supply chain tracing, and supply chain management measures that importers can use to avoid importing goods from China that are made with forced labor (Question 11);
the type of evidence that companies can provide to rebut the presumption of forced labor for goods manufactured or produced in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) (Questions 12, 14);
identification of tools that could help companies ensure products imported from China were not produced or manufactured with forced labor and that could help U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) enforce the UFLPA (Questions 10, 13);
the need for a common set of supply chain traceability and verification standards (Question 13);
the existing government and private sector infrastructure that exists to support any widely endorsed traceability and verification protocol (Question 13); and
the measures that can be taken to trace the origin of goods, offer greater supply chain transparency, and identify third-country supply chain routes for goods produced or manufactured with forced labor in China (Question 15).

The full notice can be found here. Comments are due by March 10, 2022. The UFLPA contains other important deadlines for the government as well. By March 23, 2022, the State Department is required to submit a diplomatic strategy to Congress for creating awareness and supporting enforcement of the UFLPA. Companies that wish to comment on the diplomatic strategy may do so in response to Questions 16 and 17.

By June 21, 2022, CBP must begin applying the rebuttable presumption standard, set forth in the UFLPA, to imports entering the United States. The Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force must also provide its enforcement strategy report, including the guidance it has for U.S. importers, to Congress on this date as well.

Companies still have time to influence the diplomatic and enforcement strategies and the guidelines for U.S. importers, but they must do so on or before March 10, 2022. If you have any questions about the type of information the government is seeking or how to file comments, please do not hesitate to contact Mike Walsh, Jeff Atkin, Vanessa Miller, David Simon, or your Foley attorney.

Disclaimer

This blog is made available by Foley & Lardner LLP (“Foley” or “the Firm”) for informational purposes only. It is not meant to convey the Firm’s legal position on behalf of any client, nor is it intended to convey specific legal advice. Any opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Foley & Lardner LLP, its partners, or its clients. Accordingly, do not act upon this information without seeking counsel from a licensed attorney. This blog is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. Communicating with Foley through this website by email, blog post, or otherwise, does not create an attorney-client relationship for any legal matter. Therefore, any communication or material you transmit to Foley through this blog, whether by email, blog post or any other manner, will not be treated as confidential or proprietary. The information on this blog is published “AS IS” and is not guaranteed to be complete, accurate, and or up-to-date. Foley makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation or content of the site. Foley expressly disclaims all other guarantees, warranties, conditions and representations of any kind, either express or implied, whether arising under any statute, law, commercial use or otherwise, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. In no event shall Foley or any of its partners, officers, employees, agents or affiliates be liable, directly or indirectly, under any theory of law (contract, tort, negligence or otherwise), to you or anyone else, for any claims, losses or damages, direct, indirect special, incidental, punitive or consequential, resulting from or occasioned by the creation, use of or reliance on this site (including information and other content) or any third party websites or the information, resources or material accessed through any such websites. In some jurisdictions, the contents of this blog may be considered Attorney Advertising. If applicable, please note that prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Photographs are for dramatization purposes only and may include models. Likenesses do not necessarily imply current client, partnership or employee status.