Customs and International Trade Law Blog : International Trade Lawyer & Attorney : Becker & Poliakoff Law Firm : Customs Law, Border Protection

 Alan Becker, Board member of Enterprise and Chair of Beacon Council, with Gov Scott meets with business leaders in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Editor's Note: Thanks to Managing Shareholder Alan Becker, our guest blogger, who just returned from the Enterprise Florida Trade Mission to Brazil with Governor Rick Scott and a delegation of Florida business leaders. Alan is the Chair of the Beacon Council, MIami Dade County's Economic Development agency.

Alan S. Becker

Brazil was the # 1 trading partner for the Miami Customs district in 2010 and has been the top trading partner for more than a decade. It is Florida's # 1 trade partner with over $15 billion in annual trade. Of that, $13 billion is export to Brazil, so there is a lot of room for increased trade importing to Florida.
 
Many of the largest Brazilian companies already have regional or US headquarters in Miami, such as Odebrecht, Itau Bank, TAM Airlines, and many others.
 
Miami - Dade County is the area where most of this trade takes place, which is not surprising. Of Dade's 2.5 million residents, half are foreign born and 2/3 speak a second language in addition to English, almost all from the Caribbean, Central and South American. There are at least 50,000 Brazilians living in South Florida.
 
In 2010, 555,000 visitors came from Brazil just to Miami-Dade County and spent $1 billion--the first country to reach $1 billion in visitor spending. It is estimated that if there were a waiver of the visa requirement, those figures would immediately double.

Miami International Airport has more daily direct flights to South America than all other US airports combined. There are 93 weekly direct flights to cities in Brazil with 20,000 seats. The Port of Miami services 13 Brazilian Ports with cargo ships each week. With the deep dredge of the Port, making us the first ready for the post Panamax super ships, and the tunnel to move Port travel, the Port of

Miami, already # 1 in international cargo, is positioned to double its cargo capacity by 2014.

This affinity between Miami and Brazil underscores the reason why business activity is so great and is growing.

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The annual seminar "Practical Tools for Trade in the Food Industry" takes place at the Miami Seaport on September 7, 2011 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  Sponsored by the Miami-Dade County Office of Economic Development & International Trade, and supported by the Port of Miami, this year we will again focus on what importers need to know about both U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements.  There will  be special emphasis on the new Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011.

The seminar takes place at the beautiful Port of Miami Conference Room, 1015 N. America Way, Miami.  Registration may be done on-line.   Questions regarding REGISTRATION may be directed to Adam Peters, Trade Development Specialist at (305) 375-5420 or apeters@miamidade.gov.  Question regarding content of the seminar may be directed to me or Jennifer Diaz, Senior Attorney, Customs and International Trade Department, Becker & Poliakoff law firm (305) 260-1053.

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For questions or comments, please contact:

Peter Quinter, Partner, Customs and International Trade Department

pquinter@becker-poliakoff.com or (954) 270-1864

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The International Bar Association's 2nd Conference of the Americas takes place at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Miami, Florida, May 4-6, 2011. The inaugural Conference of the Americas took place in Mexico City in 2008.   The International Bar Association (IBA) is the largest legal organization in the world.

This Second Conference will again be the perfect opportunity for legal professionals from North America and South America to network, share information, and identify issues, concerns and opportunities across the Americas' legal markets and jurisdictions.  The Program sessions are focused on 8 areas:

1. The region in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
2. Cartel enforcement and leniency programs.
3. International trade.
4. Taxation
5. Dispute resolution.
6. Energy issues and infrastructure.
7. Social networking.
8. General Counsel Forum.

This event is also supported by the International Law Section of the Florida Bar Association.  The Conference Program Co-Chairs are Pierre Bienvenu based in Montreal, Peter Quinter based in Miami, and Claudio Undurraga based in Santiago.  To register for the conference, please do so on-line.  For questions, please contact any of the three people above.

I look forward to seeing you in Miami.

Peter Quinter, Partner

Customs and International Trade Law Department

pquinter@becker-poliakoff.com or (954) 270-1864

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To the dismay of the local international trade community, three international freight forwarding companies and their owners are being criminally prosecuted for illegally exporting merchandise to a company in Paraguay. The company in Paraguay had been designated a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the United States Government.  Exporters and forwarding companies sending any cargo to such a company, even Sony PlayStation video games, would be in violation of the law. 

In an Indictment dated October 1, 2009, Case No. 09-20852-CR-GOLD, the United States Attorneys' Office in Miami charged three Miami freight forwarding companies and their owners with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA),50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., 18 U.S.C. 554 (fraudulently exporting from the United States), 18 U.S.C. 371 (conspiracy), and 13 U.S.C. 305 (knowingly submitting false Shippers Export Declarations or information through the Automated Export System (AES).

In summary, the Government has alleged that the Paraguay company paid an Ohio distributor of Sony PlayStations to ship those items to the freight forwarding companies in Miami. Once in Miami, according to the Indictment, the freight forwarders and their owners allegedly created documents falsely identifying the address of the company in Paraguay because they knew they could not ship the Sony PlayStations to the real address.  The real address of the company in Paraguay, according to the Indictment, had been designated by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.  The designated terrorist was Galeria Page, an office mall in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay.

The case was investigated by the Miami office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which issued a Press Release.  According to the Penalty Sheet filed with the Indictment, the maximum penalty for the individual owners of the freight forwarding companies who were arrested for the alleged violations is 20 years imprisonment. 

To obtain a copy of the Indictment which was just unsealed on February 26, 2010, please contact me at pquinter@becker-poliakoff.com or (954) 270-1864.

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