EAPA evasion investigations and scope rulings: the clock, the entries they reach, and what to do

What is an EAPA investigation?

The Enforce and Protect Act is Title IV of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. CBP's EAPA page says it was signed into law on February 24, 2016, and CBP's implementing regulations, 19 CFR part 165, were issued on August 22, 2016. The statute, 19 U.S.C. 1517, gives CBP an administrative procedure, with fixed deadlines and a written record, to decide one question: was merchandise covered by an antidumping or countervailing duty order entered into the United States through evasion?

"Evasion" has a precise meaning in 19 CFR 165.1: entering covered merchandise by means of a material and false document, statement or act, or a material omission, that results in an AD/CVD cash deposit or duty being reduced or not applied. The regulation gives transshipment, misclassification and undervaluation as examples. A clerical error, as 19 U.S.C. 1517(a)(5)(B) defines it, is not evasion, although CBP still collects the duty (19 CFR 165.15(c)(1)).

The case starts with an allegation from an interested party, often a domestic producer of the product, or a referral from another federal agency. The parties to the investigation are the party that filed the allegation and the importer it names. The rest of this page covers the clock, which entries each step reaches, how the Commerce Department's role differs from CBP's, and how to size the exposure from your own data. How AD/CVD works on an ordinary entry is on antidumping and countervailing duties on past entries.

What is the difference between a scope ruling and an EAPA case?

Two agencies, two questions. Get this right before anything else, because it decides who you answer and what evidence matters.

The two meet in the middle. If CBP cannot determine whether the goods in an allegation are covered, 19 CFR 165.16 requires a referral to Commerce, and the time Commerce takes is not counted against CBP's deadlines. Commerce then has 20 days after acknowledging a sufficient referral to start a covered merchandise inquiry or to fold the question into an open scope or circumvention inquiry (351.227(b)), and 120 days from the notice of initiation to decide, extendable by up to 150 days (351.227(c)).

A practical point for an importer that thinks its product is outside an order: a scope ruling application is the way to get Commerce's answer for future entries. The International Trade Administration's scope ruling page links the application form; 351.225(c) lists what it must contain, including the entry summaries if the product has been imported, and under 351.225(d) Commerce decides within 30 days whether to accept it and open a scope inquiry; if it has neither rejected the application nor initiated by day 31, the application is deemed accepted and the inquiry deemed initiated.

What is the EAPA clock, and which entries does each step reach?

Day zero is the date CBP receives a properly filed allegation. Every later date counts from it or from the date of initiation.

The row to notice is the notice of initiation. CBP must take interim measures within 90 days but need only tell the importer five business days after day 90. In practice the first sign of a case can be suspended entries, a demand for cash deposits or a bond requirement, with the notice following. From the notice, the importer has roughly 100 days until the day-200 cut-off for factual information, which is the window that matters most.

Two standards apply at different points. Interim measures need only a reasonable suspicion (165.24(a)); the determination must rest on substantial evidence (1517(c); 165.27(a)). And the record is not all public: where CBP grants a party's request to treat parts of a submission as business confidential, 165.4(f) has it issue an administrative protective order under which the parties' representatives can see that information. That access runs through counsel, which is one more reason to engage counsel early.

What do interim measures do to each entry?

On reasonable suspicion, 19 U.S.C. 1517(e) and 19 CFR 165.24(b) give CBP three tools, and each reaches a different group of entries:

1. Entries on or after the date of initiation, unliquidated: liquidation is suspended.
2. Entries before the date of initiation, unliquidated: the liquidation period is extended under 19 U.S.C. 1504(b).
3. Any of the covered merchandise: additional measures to protect the revenue, including a single transaction bond, additional security or a cash deposit, under 19 U.S.C. 1623.

Liquidated entries are outside the interim measures, but 165.24(b)(2) lets CBP pursue them by other means. A negative determination lifts the measures and lets entries liquidate in the normal course (165.27(c)). An affirmative one keeps them suspended or extended, and CBP asks Commerce for the assessment rate, or a cash deposit rate if no assessment rate exists yet, and collects at those rates (165.28).

How do you size the exposure from your own entry export?

The notice names the importer, the merchandise and the order. Everything else can be computed from the broker's entry export, and should be computed before the first submission.

1. Find the allegation window. If the notice does not give the receipt date of the allegation, work back: initiation was at most 15 business days after receipt, and the notice says when initiation happened. Take every entry from one year before the earliest plausible receipt date.
2. Select the lines of the named merchandise. Use description, part number and HTS number together. The order's written scope decides coverage, not the HTS number, so a product entered under a different HTS number can still be in the case.
3. Split by status on the initiation date. Liquidated; unliquidated and entered before initiation (extended); entered on or after initiation (suspended).
4. Apply the rate that would apply if the goods are covered. Use the rate Commerce would identify for the goods' true producer and country, from its cash deposit instructions. If the producer has no rate of its own, that is often the country-wide or "all others" rate, which can be far above the duty actually paid.
5. Add the other duty that rides on the same facts. If the allegation is transshipment, the true origin can change the ordinary Chapter 99 stack on each entry date as well, because several Chapter 99 duties apply by country of origin. The duty calculator shows that stack for a code, origin and date; origin rules are on country of origin on past entries.
6. Total it by group, and keep a list of entries the case does not reach. Entries outside the window or of other products are still exposed if the same facts apply, but to other procedures.

An illustrative sizing, for an importer whose notice of initiation arrived on October 1, 2026, for initiation on June 26, 2026, on an allegation received around June 5, 2026:

The numbers are illustrative. The method is the point: each group has a different route, and the cash deposit demand on new entries is a working-capital cost from the day it starts, whatever the outcome. If the goods are in fact outside the order's scope, the same table becomes the evidence for a Commerce referral or scope ruling, because it shows which entries a ruling would release.

What should an importer do in the first weeks?

1. Engage trade counsel. The case is a formal investigation under 19 U.S.C. 1592(c)(4) (19 CFR 165.1), and anything placed on the record can be used later. This page describes the procedure; it is not legal advice.
2. Diary every deadline from the notice: day 200 for factual information, day 230 for written arguments, day 300 for the determination.
3. Answer CBP's requests completely and on time. 165.23(a) lets CBP require information from the importer, the foreign producer or exporter and even the foreign government, within the time CBP sets.
4. Assemble the production evidence for the goods' true origin. Where the case is transshipment, the evidence is the production records, raw material purchases, factory capacity and shipping documents of the claimed producer.
5. Decide whether the scope question should go to Commerce. If the product is arguably outside the order, that argument belongs with Commerce, by referral or scope ruling, not in an evasion argument with CBP.
6. Review the rest of your entries. An EAPA case on one supplier is a reason to run the same check on every supplier of the same product. A violation of a different kind found in that review may still be disclosed; see prior disclosure after you find an underpayment. A separate penalty case under 19 U.S.C. 1592 is possible whatever the EAPA outcome (19 CFR 165.47); the pre-penalty notice guide covers that stage.

Where does a line-level audit help?

Steps 1 to 6 of the sizing are line work on data you already hold: entry dates, liquidation status, product, origin, manufacturer and the duty paid on each line. TariffSense reads Form 7501s and broker entry exports in any layout and recomputes each line's duty stack for its origin and entry date, which is the base this table needs. The post-entry audit page shows what comes back. The scope question stays with Commerce and the evasion question with CBP.

What should you do next on your own entries?

Before any allegation, list every product you import that resembles a product under an AD/CVD order, by order country and by the countries your suppliers ship from. For each, write down who made it, where the main processing took place, and whether that answer is supported by production records, not only by the supplier's invoice. The post-entry audit pillar covers the other line checks, and how to check entry liquidation status shows how to bucket the entries by status.