CBP Won't Publicize Every Company With Ties to Forced Labor, Former Official Says

CBP is unlikely to publicly list every entity that it determines engages in forced labor, said Ana Hinojosa, the former executive director of CBP's Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate. Although importers want CBP to provide them with a comprehensive list of potential companies not to work with, Hinojosa said it would be “an impossibility” based on how quickly companies change names after getting caught.

As a result, “it turns into more of an enforcement effort to track them and track the changes of entities, track beneficial ownership, using all kinds of other methods to continue to track infringing companies,” Hinojosa said during an event this week hosted by the Harvard Law School Association of Washington, D.C. Future changes to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List (see 2301270078) will likely be “more of an annual update” than a continual updated list of entities, Hinojosa said.

Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer and senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, said the onus for determining which companies may be involved in forced labor, including in Xinjiang, often falls on the importer. Asat gave tips for how companies can examine their supply chains and avoid using products from the region.

“If it's a very new company, that's a red flag right there,” she said. “I'm not saying new companies should never be given a chance, but you need to look at: Do they have a proper website? Do they have a point of contact? Do they have a track record of being a good supplier and certificate[s] and so forth?”

Asat said there are “so many factors that the importers can look into easily” to determine whether a supplier is involved in forced labor. But she also noted that it can be difficult to monitor Chinese companies, citing the fact that major auditing companies PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, KPMG and EY all reportedly exited China due to auditing challenges.

The UFLPA identified industries that would get particular scrutiny, including Xinjiang cotton, which was already subject to a regionwide withhold release order before the law's passage. Hinojosa also noted that more can be done with regard to the UFLPA, specifically, monitoring other Asian countries and the goods that they export. The concern is not just China but “anywhere where Chinese cotton could be going into the production [of] goods.”

“If you just look at the Asian countries, many of the other Asian countries are not cotton-producing countries,” Hinojosa said. “Therefore, their cotton should be a high risk, and ensuring the origin of that cotton will be extremely important in mitigating the risk for those products.”