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Check For Weed

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.19.10

In Agredano v. U.S. (Feb. 17, 2010), the Federal Circuit reversed the Court of Federal Claims decision that Customs and Border Protection breached an implied-in-fact warranty when it sold a car at auction containing concealed marijuana, drugs that ultimately resulted in the purchaser spending a year in a Mexican prison. The Federal Circuit held there was no implied-in-fact warranty that the car did not contain contraband, finding there was no meeting of the minds required to form such a warranty because Customs' regulatory duty to remove contraband from the forfeited vehicle did not create a contractual obligation and the agency had expressly disclaimed any and all warranties at the auction.

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 05.18.26

(Not) All’s Weld That Ends Weld: Duty Evasion Scheme Ends in Historic $549.5M FCA Settlement

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the cross-agency Trade Fraud Task Force have upped the ante by an order of magnitude in the government’s pursuit of customs fraud. On May 1, 2026—only a few months after setting its previous record-high customs-related False Claims Act (FCA) settlement of $54.4 million with Ceratizit USA, LLC—the DOJ shattered that record with a $549.5 million settlement with Perfectus Aluminum Inc., its subsidiary Perfectus Aluminum Acquisitions LLC, and a set of four affiliated warehousing companies. The Perfectus settlement resolves allegations that the defendants violated the FCA by evading antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD). The settlement resolves three separate qui tam complaints filed by two individual relators and the Aluminum Extruders Council, an international industry association. Defendants were previously criminally convicted on charges related to the same scheme, and those convictions were affirmed by the Ninth Circuit in 2024....

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