Gregory Husisian and David Simon Uncover the High Stakes of Tariff Evasion

Foley & Lardner LLP partners Gregory Husisian and David Simon are featured for their insights on how the U.S. government is cracking down on tariff evaders in the Newsweek article, “America Is Making Billions From Catching ‘Tariff Cheaters.’“

Husisian, noting the evolving tariff environment, said that “any element that goes into the tariff calculation can potentially be manipulated by cheating.” He said the key ways that companies may be — knowingly or otherwise — avoiding tariffs are wrongly identifying the country of origin, incorrectly classifying goods or a good’s value, falsely claiming a free trade preference, and failing to pay countervailing and anti-dumping duties.

He added that most of these factors are “much bigger deals under the new Trump tariffs,” with rates now varying widely across countries and industry sectors.

Simon addressed how U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and Department of Justice are ensnaring tariff evaders, citing the preferred tool used to penalize offenders as the False Claims Act (FCA).

He said the wide implementation of tariffs has put the FCA “on steroids” as proven violators of the anti-fraud state can face triple damages. Simon added that another factor at play is the FCA’s whistleblower provision, which given the scale of certain tariffs, can amount to “really big dollars” in returns for whistleblowers as a percentage of the federal government’s overall recovery.