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HQ 115808

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October 8, 2002

ENT-1-01-RR:IT:EC 115808 GG

CATEGORY: ENTRY

Ms. Susan H. Gleason
Director, Corporate Customs and Export Administration Fujitsu America, Inc.
3055 Orchard Drive
San Jose, CA 95134-2022

Dear Ms. Gleason:

This is in response to your ruling request, dated 6th September, 2002, on the subject of the right to make entry. Our ruling follows.

FACTS:

Fujitsu Limited of Kawasaki, Japan (“Fujitsu Limited”) will ship product from Japan to the United States. The invoice consigns the product to Fujitsu Computer Products of America (“FCPA”). Fujitsu Limited will continue to own the product at the time of entry and until it is sold. When FCPA has a customer for the product, Fujitsu Limited will sell it to FCPA and FCPA will, in turn, sell it to its customer.

ISSUE:

Whether FCPA has the right to make entry?

LAW AND ANALYSIS:

Section 484(a)(1) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (19 U.S.C. § 1484(a)(1)) provides that only parties qualified as the “importer of record” may make entry. Those qualified parties are identified in § 484(b)(2)(B) as the owner or purchaser of the merchandise, or, when appropriately designated by the owner, purchaser, or consignee of the merchandise, a licensed customs broker.

The terms “owner” and “purchaser” for right-to-make-entry purposes are defined in Customs Directive 3530-002A, dated June 27, 2001. Sections 5.2.1 and 5.2.2 of the directive provide: 5.2.1 The terms “owner” and “purchaser” include any party with a financial interest in a transaction, including, but not limited to, the actual owner of the goods, the actual purchaser of the goods, a buying or selling agent, a person or firm who imports on consignment, a person or firm who imports under loan or lease, a person or firm who imports for exhibition at a trade fair, a person or firm who imports goods for repair or alteration or further fabrication, etc. Any such owner or purchaser may make entry on his own behalf or may designate a licensed Customs broker to make entry on his behalf and may be shown as the importer of record on the CF 7501. The terms “owner” or “purchaser” would not include a “nominal consignee” who effectively possesses no other right, title, or interest in the goods except as he possessed under a bill of lading, air waybill, or other shipping document.

5.2.2 Examples of nominal consignees not authorized to file Customs entries are express consignment operators (ECO), freight consolidators who handle consolidated shipments as described in 5.10 below, and Customs brokers who are not permitted to transact customs business in Customs districts where a shipment is being entered.

From your description it appears that FCPA is importing the product on consignment. The term “consignment”, used in a commercial sense, ordinarily implies an agency and denotes that property is committed to the consignee for care or sale. Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Edition. Fujitsu Limited sends the goods to FCPA for the purpose of FCPA locating purchasers in the United States. Accordingly, FCPA as a company that imports on consignment has a sufficient financial interest in the transaction to qualify as the owner or purchaser for purposes of making entry. FCPA would be entitled to serve as the importer of record on the entry documents for these products.

HOLDING:

FCPA imports the products on consignment and, as such, has a sufficient financial interest in them to make entry.

Sincerely,

Glen E. Vereb
Acting Chief

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