Gregory Husisian and David Simon on Tariff Evasion – 'Huge money at stake'

Foley & Lardner LLP partners Gregory Husisian and David Simon detailed the rise and risks of tariff evasion in the POLITICO article, “As Trump raises tariffs, companies find ways to cheat — and risk getting caught.”

Husisian explained that there is “huge money at stake” as higher tariffs create more incentives for companies to try to dodge import duties. “Chinese companies just view this like a game to be able to get around the tariffs” he said.

Simon shared that the combination of the increased tariffs and multiplied penalties in cases brought by the U.S. Department of Justice make a company’s “exposure so much more massive.”

“There’s also sort of a political component to this,” he continued. “I think DOJ would very much like to make some examples out of some companies and people.”

He highlighted that one enforcement avenue for DOJ to aggressively pursue tariff evasion is the False Claims Act, “which basically allows them to get treble damages.”

Husisian added that Customs officials are leveraging data mining to help identify fraud, contacting companies and saying, “Hey, you used to bring all your stuff in from China. Now all your stuff’s coming from Thailand. And this began two days after the new tariffs came in place.”

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