Reasonable Care

Description

The number on the entry is yours. So is the liability.

Every importer has heard the comforting line: ‘We hired a licensed customs broker, so we’re covered.’ Federal law says otherwise. Under 19 U.S.C. § 1484, the duty of reasonable care sits on the importer of record — not the broker — and in cases from Golden Ship Trading to United States v. Trek Leather, the courts have pushed that exposure all the way down to the individuals who sign. In the 2026 enforcement era of mandatory penalty floors and a ‘good standing’ importer registry, the gap between that legal reality and the way most importers actually operate has never been more expensive.

Reasonable Care is the field manual for closing that gap. Written by a working trade-compliance practitioner, it hands you the tools brokers never will: a Power-of-Attorney addendum that rebalances the risk, a Service Level Agreement with real teeth, the ACE data-audit routines that catch broker errors while they’re still free to fix, a Post-Summary Correction and prior-disclosure playbook, and a Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEE) escalation guide for when CBP comes asking. It is grounded in real case law and real enforcement — Golden Ship, Horizon Products, Trek Leather, Royal Brush, the Ceratizit settlement, and UFLPA detention practice — not hypotheticals.

Oversight is not a war with your broker. It is the scaffolding of an accountable partnership, and the standard the best brokers already welcome. If your company’s number sits in the Importer of Record box, this book is your move.