Crowell & Moring LLP (LexBlog Mexico)

In ruling N326004 (June 3, 2022), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) discussed the country of origin and tariff classification of a motorcycle. The merchandise was identified as the XR-150L Series Motorcycle, which has a gas-powered engine with a displacement of 149.16 cubic capacity (cc). The motorcycle’s manufacturing and processing operations take place in Mexico, which...

Within the Tenth Circuit, states vary in their enforcement of restrictive covenants. Wyoming, Kansas, and New Mexico govern the use of restrictive covenants through common law while Utah, Colorado, and Oklahoma govern through statute. Oklahoma is unique in that it prohibits restrictive covenants through statute. In the other five states, despite the variations in governing...

On June 29, 2021, U.S. Trade Representative for Labor, Joshua Kagan, and U.S. Department of Labor’s Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs, Thea Lee, met with their counterparts from Mexico and Canada for the first USMCA Labor Council meeting. Key areas of discussion as outlined by USTR included: USMCA’s requirement that each party prohibit the importation...

Today, New Mexico State Auditor Brian Colón announced his candidacy for State Attorney General. He hopes to follow the footsteps of former state auditor, now Attorney General Hector Balderas who is in his second term and term limited. The former chairman of the New Mexico Democratic Party is now the first person to enter the...

Companies in the online marketplace have been paying close attention to Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) in recent weeks and months. As noted in our previous client alert, CDA Section 230 “is a powerful law that provides websites, blogs, and social networks that host third-party speech with liability protection against...

On May 15, 2020, President Trump issued an executive order establishing the “Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force” required by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) implementing bill. Section 741 of the USMCA Implementation Act requires the Department of Homeland Security the Task Force as the central hub for the U.S. government’s enforcement of the prohibition on imports...

A New Mexico court of appeals recently held that a former employee could not be permanently enjoined from disclosing trade secrets because his employment agreement provided for a five-year limit on the duty of confidentiality. Lasen, Inc. (“Lasen”), a company that uses trade secret helicopter-mounted LIDAR imaging technology to detect methane gas leaks in natural...

On March 23, 2020 CMS approved 11 more Section 1135 state Medicaid waiver requests for the following states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Virginia. As with the prior waivers, CMS approved the requests in a handful of days from receiving them. The CMS press release...

On December 31, 2019, in New Mexico Health Connections v. U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the methodology adopted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) to administer the Risk Adjustment Program under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”). In doing so,...

On Wednesday, August 22nd, the United States and Mexico reached a draft agreement that suspends the ongoing antidumping investigation of fresh tomatoes from Mexico. The original antidumping case was filed in 1996 by Florida tomato growers, and since then suspension agreements have been in place to manage trade between the two countries and hold off...

On June 7, 2019, the U.S. Department of State published a statement explaining that the U.S. and Mexican governments had come to an agreement on what measures would be taken to address the issue of the increasing number of migrants coming into the U.S. from its southern border. In a string of tweets, President Trump...

On Monday April 29th, 2019, Mexico’s Senate approved a bill that gives its workers the right to use secret-ballots to vote on union matters and contracts. It also requires proof of workers’ consent for collective bargaining agreements and creates an independent agency and court to replace the current labor board in order to resolve disputes...

On December 1, a day after signing the new U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), President Trump suggested to the press that he would formally notify Canada and Mexico of U.S. withdrawal from the existing NAFTA, in order to pressure Congress to pass USMCA in 2019. Meanwhile, on December 6, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met with...

On August 27, the U.S. and Mexico announced a “preliminary agreement in principle” on the renegotiation of NAFTA—a deal reached without Canada, which sat out the latest bilateral talks. Canada’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, has joined negotiations this week in hopes of reaching a trilateral agreement by Friday, August 31. Despite the significant publicity around...

Unlike the NAFTA negotiations, discussions to modernize the Global Agreement between the EU and Mexico are proceeding steadily, such that the parties are still adhering to their objective of reaching an agreement in principle by the end of 2017. A fifth round of negotiations took place in Brussels at the end of September, followed by an...

Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) On June 8, BIS entered into a Settlement Agreement with Axis Communications, Inc. of Massachusetts to settle charges of 15 alleged violations of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The company was assessed a $700,000 civil penalty and directed to conduct an external audit of its export compliance program by an unaffiliated...

Join us today for our webinar Building a Border Wall: Opportunities, Contractual Risks, and Business Considerations. The Trump administration published two contract solicitations for the design-build of a “border wall” between the U.S. and Mexico. The RFPs (linked here and here) contemplate a multiple-award, multiple-phase approach for acquiring prototypes and, eventually, full construction.  A...

Escalating tensions between the U.S. and Mexico threatened to put the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at risk for the first time since its birth in 1994. On January 26, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced his decision to cancel Mexico’s participation in the ‘three amigos’ meeting in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the...

Escalating tensions between the U.S. and Mexico have put the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at risk for the first time since its birth in 1994. On January 26, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced his decision to cancel Mexico’s participation in the ‘three amigos’ meeting in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the planned...

Trade with Mexico and China were top issues for the Trump campaign, and recent developments suggest corporations may be in store for significant change under a Trump Administration. Could we be looking at an entirely different economic framework after January 20? How will manufacturers be impacted? Crowell & Moring International Trade Group partners Daniel Cannistra...

On January 6th, the Mexican Government published a new list of apparel and textile goods with “estimated prices.” These prices are the minimum reference price that goods ranging from raw materials to finished products may be imported into Mexico and is categorized by Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification number. Shipments entered below these prices will be...

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico recently upheld a Magistrate Judge’s recommendation for sanctions against the government for failing to preserve electronically stored information (ESI) in a False Claims Act case, ordering the government to produce certain privileged materials and to pay costs associated with the motion for sanctions. In United...