Hunton Retail Law Resource

Importers that have suffered “significant financial hardship” due to COVID-19 may qualify for a 90-day pay extension for certain tariffs. On April 19, 2020, following calls for trade liberalization to ease economic pressures, the Trump administration issued an executive order, along with a temporary final rule by the US Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which postpones the time to deposit certain duties, taxes and fees. However, the 90-day pay extension is limited in scope and certain goods are not eligible for the extension.

As posted on the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives blog, many in the labor community are familiar with the Machinists Union’s (“Union”) long running effort to unionize Boeing’s South Carolina-based 787 Dreamliner manufacturing facility. After failing in two previous attempts to organize the entire facility, the Union recently won a bid to organize a “micro-unit” limited to a group of flight line technicians and inspectors. The Regional Director’s decision to approve the Union’s proposed bargaining unit took most labor practitioners by surprise, given the NLRB’s recent decision in PCC Structurals overturning the controversial Specialty Healthcare standard that facilitated the formation of micro-units. In PCC Structurals, the NLRB rejected the Specialty Healthcare test and reaffirmed that in reviewing representation petitions, the NLRB cannot limit its analysis to the interests of employees in the proposed bargaining group and instead must make a “meaningful” evaluation of the interests of those excluded from the group.

With the National Retail Foundation estimating 8 to 12 percent growth in U.S. e-commerce in 2017, retailers across the country are vying to compete for a piece of the $400B+ pie. Crucial to their efforts is that retailers offer a seamless online and in-home customer experience, which includes maximizing shipping and returns efficiencies. But equally as important is that retailers remain compliant with FTC regulations and state unfair competition and business practices laws, in order to minimize their exposure to an ever-expanding putative class of the 80 percent of Americans who place online orders each year.

In that vein, we have previously reported and advised on the rise in ADA and TCCWNA claims in 2015 and 2016. Now, over the past few months, a new trend has emerged that has ramifications for virtually every participant in the online retail space: a rise in the number of class action claims challenging allegedly excessive shipping & handling (“S&H”) fees. Regardless whether an online retailer offers flat or incremental S&H fees, standard and expedited S&H options or free shipping with returns-only S&H fees, few are immune from claims that the fees charged do not align perfectly with retailers’ underlying shipping costs.

This month, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (“RILA”) submitted comments to the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) opposing a point-of-sale registration requirement for recreational drones. While the trade association generally supports the registration of drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems, RILA called the point-of-sale registration process “costly, inefficient, and difficult to implement” while warning of potential data privacy concerns for consumers.