US courier company, FedEx, is suing the US Department of Commerce for enforcing prohibitions contained in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) against FedEx.
According to FedEx, EAR violates common carriers’ rights to due process under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution as they unreasonably hold common carriers strictly liable for shipments that may violate EAR without requiring evidence that the carriers had knowledge of any violations.
FedEx said this puts an impossible burden on a common carrier such as itself to know the origin and technological make-up of the contents of all the shipments it handles and whether they comply with EAR.
“As a company that is committed to complying with all laws and regulations in the countries we serve, FedEx strongly supports the objectives of US export control laws,” FedEx said in a statement.
“We have invested heavily in our internal export control compliance program. However, we believe that the EAR, as currently constructed and implemented, place an unreasonable burden on FedEx to police the millions of shipments that transit our network every day. FedEx is a transportation company, not a law enforcement agency.
“FedEx will continue to defend our rights as a US based global company, and we remain committed to delivering outstanding service to our customers in all countries around the world.”
EAR is administered by the Bureau of Industry and Security, which is part of the US Department of Commerce. EAR governs whether a person may export a physical thing or commodity from the US, re-export the commodity from a foreign country or transfer a commodity from one person to another in a foreign country.