EAPA: How CBP Investigates AD/CVD Evasion, What Interim Measures Cost, and Why Cooperation Doesn't Always Save You

On June 23, 2026, CBP issued an evasion determination against Waaree Energies, India's largest solar manufacturer, for entering solar modules subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders without paying applicable AD/CVD cash deposits. The final determination found substantial evidence of evasion. Waaree contests the finding. What makes the case instructive for importers beyond the solar industry: Waaree fully cooperated throughout the investigation, received no adverse inference for that cooperation, and was still found to have evaded duties. Five years of entries are now subject to suspended liquidation and retroactive rate reassessment at AD rates up to 271.28%.

Cooperation determines how CBP builds its record. It doesn't cure past entries filed under the wrong classification or duty structure.

That is the core of how EAPA enforcement works. Understanding it matters well before you receive a questionnaire.

The Statutory Framework

The Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) was enacted as Title IV of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, codified at 19 U.S.C. § 1517 and implemented through 19 C.F.R. Part 165. Before EAPA, CBP could investigate evasion but had no statutory timeline or structured process. Domestic industries filed allegations and waited. EAPA changed that: it created a fast, mandatory process with hard deadlines at each stage.

What counts as evasion. The statute defines evasion as entering covered merchandise (merchandise subject to an AD or CVD order) by means of any material false document, false statement, or material omission, where the result is that applicable duties are reduced or not applied. No fraudulent intent is required. Transshipment (routing goods through a third country to disguise origin), misclassification (wrong HTS code to avoid an order's coverage), and undervaluation all qualify. A supplier's misrepresentation that you relied on in good faith is not a defense to the evasion finding itself, though it may affect how CBP weighs adverse inferences and what penalties follow.

Who can allege. CBP cannot self-initiate an EAPA case. Allegations must come from an "interested party": a domestic manufacturer competing against the imported goods, a trade association, a union, or another importer. Domestic industries often file allegations as soon as they see a competitor's pricing that suggests AD/CVD rates aren't being paid.

The Investigation Timeline

The timelines are mandatory. This is a key difference from the pre-EAPA regime.

The investigation is non-public from initiation until interim measures are imposed or an initiation notice is formally issued. An importer can be under active investigation for up to 90 days before receiving any notice. If CBP finds reasonable suspicion within those 90 days, interim measures come first, and the importer learns about the investigation when the measures take effect.

What Interim Measures Look Like in Practice

"Reasonable suspicion" is the standard for interim measures, a much lower bar than the "substantial evidence" required for a final determination. CBP can impose interim measures within 90 days of initiating the investigation. Measures can include:

• Suspension of liquidation on all covered entries
• A live-entry requirement: full documentation and cash deposit of AD/CVD duties before goods are released from customs
• Enhanced examination targeting all shipments
• Single-transaction bond requirements on individual entries

The rate applied under a live-entry requirement is typically the "all-others" China-wide AD/CVD rate, not the specific exporter rate your supplier may have been assigned. For Chinese-origin goods, that rate frequently exceeds 100%.

In April 2026, CBP imposed interim measures in an EAPA investigation involving golf carts from China (ICON EV LLC v. United States, CIT No. 26-02759). The combined AD/CVD cash deposit rate imposed: 519.23%. The importer testified this would push the company into bankruptcy within a month. On April 24, 2026, the Court of International Trade granted both a TRO and a preliminary injunction, blocking CBP from enforcing the rate while providing an appropriate hearing. That was a rare outcome. Most importers don't get to the CIT before interim measures do real damage.

The lesson isn't that CBP imposes illegal rates with impunity; the court stepped in here. The lesson is that interim measures at AD/CVD rates are financially severe enough that an emergency CIT filing was necessary to survive them.

The Innocent Importer Problem

This is the part of EAPA that most importers who source through intermediaries underestimate.

EAPA enforcement attaches to the importer of record. Not the foreign manufacturer, not the freight forwarder, not the transshipper who rerouted goods through a third country without your knowledge. If your supplier shipped Chinese-origin merchandise through a Vietnam distribution hub and you declared it Vietnam-origin based on their invoice, you, as the importer of record, are the party against whom CBP makes an evasion determination.

CBP acknowledges the dynamic plainly in its EAPA guidance: "In some instances, the importer may be unaware of any evasion done by the foreign shipper or foreign manufacturer and be more akin to an 'innocent bystander.'" That acknowledgment doesn't change the legal outcome. Evasion is evasion regardless of knowledge, and the liability follows the entry.

The Waaree case is instructive for a different reason than most solar importers realize. Waaree's US customers, the importers who bought solar modules from Waaree believing the cells to be of Indian origin, may have their own EAPA exposure if CBP determines the cells were actually Chinese-origin and subject to AD/CVD orders. Their entries are potentially covered merchandise. Their cooperation would be evaluated separately.

In the 2025 mattress case (EAPA Cons. Case 7913), the largest consolidated EAPA investigation in CBP history, 23 US importers were caught in a scheme where Chinese mattresses were transshipped through Indonesia, South Korea, and Vietnam. Combined duty recovery: more than $250 million. The importers were the importer of record. The 23 companies' sourcing decisions, not the actions of the transshippers, determined their exposure.

What Happens on a Final Evasion Determination

Once CBP issues a final determination of evasion:

• Liquidation is suspended (or continues suspended) on all covered entries
• Entries are retroactively converted to AD/CVD entry type
• Applicable cash deposit rates apply going back to the entry dates in question
• CBP may refer the case for separate 19 U.S.C. § 1592 penalty proceedings for material false statements on entry documents

The retroactive reach is the financial threat that makes EAPA genuinely dangerous for active importers. Standard entries liquidate 314 days after filing. AD/CVD entries often remain unliquidated for years while Commerce conducts administrative reviews. In the Waaree case, CBP went back to 2021 entries, five years of suspended liquidation at the applicable rate. For an importer who has been buying and selling at margins that assumed a 0% to 5% base duty, retroactive reassessment at 271% is an existential event.

As for the administrative review process: AD/CVD rates can change significantly each year through Commerce reviews. If evasion is found and CBP applies the "all-others" rate (the default when the specific exporter has no established rate), the importer is exposed to whatever rate Commerce finally determines for the period in question, potentially across multiple annual reviews.

Due Process Rights: What Changed After Royal Brush

The EAPA process has a history of due-process problems. Before 2024, CBP routinely relied on business confidential information submitted by the alleging party, including factory inspection reports, pricing analysis, and production records, without providing it to the importer under investigation. The importer was effectively defending against evidence it couldn't see.

Royal Brush Manufacturing Inc. v. United States (Fed. Cir. 2023) changed that. CBP had investigated Royal Brush for alleged transshipment of pencils from China through the Philippines, relying on confidential information it never disclosed. The Federal Circuit held that in adjudicative proceedings, due process includes the right to know what evidence is being used against you, and that prejudice is "facial" when relied-upon evidence is withheld entirely.

On March 18, 2024, CBP published a final rule (89 Fed. Reg. 19259, effective April 17, 2024) codifying administrative protective order procedures at 19 C.F.R. § 165.4. Counsel for all interested parties can now access business confidential information on the record under APO, including the confidential information that prompted the allegation.

Request the APO immediately upon receiving an initiation notice. What's on the record under confidential treatment may be the most important part of the case, and the Royal Brush rule gives you access to it.

What Drives EAPA Caseload: Sectors to Watch

The statistics are specific. CBP's EAPA dashboard shows 228 total investigations since the program began in 2016. Of those:

• 91% involve transshipment as the evasion scheme (goods produced in China, declared as originating in a third country)
• 78% involve Chinese-origin goods (the majority of active AD/CVD orders cover Chinese exporters)
• South Korea appears in 17 cases; Germany in 16

The highest-risk sectors based on recent determinations and active allegation history: solar modules, wooden cabinets and furniture, mattresses, steel pipe and oil country tubular goods, diamond sawblades, thermal paper, and seafood. If you're importing in any of these categories, the probability that your supplier or a competitor is subject to a live EAPA investigation is not negligible.

Use the HTS code lookup to check whether your specific product code carries AD/CVD order flags, and the antidumping and CVD guide for context on how administrative reviews work and why the cash deposit rate you pay at entry isn't the final rate.

Protecting Yourself Before the Allegation Arrives

Due diligence before importing is the only effective protection. Everything else (cooperation, questionnaire responses, APO access) manages the investigation once it's started. It doesn't undo entries already filed.

Verify origin at the component level, not just assembly. The Waaree case turned on the origin of solar cells, not assembled modules. For many AD/CVD orders, substantial transformation requires more than final assembly in the declared-origin country. Know what the applicable rule is for your product, and audit your supplier's supply chain against that standard, not just against the face of their invoice.

Flag the transshipment red flags. Pricing significantly below market, recently established third-country suppliers, circuitous shipping routes, production capacity at the stated-origin facility inconsistent with declared volume. Any of these warrant a verification call before you import at scale. Domestic industries file EAPA allegations specifically when they see pricing that suggests their competition isn't paying full AD/CVD rates.

Document your supplier verification. If CBP issues a questionnaire, what saves you (or narrows your exposure) is a contemporaneous record showing you took origin verification seriously before the investigation started. Factory visit reports, origin certification forms, bills of materials, import documentation tracing back to specific production runs. These are the materials that establish whether you were a reasonable actor or an indifferent one.

Build an ongoing monitoring program. AD/CVD order coverage changes. New orders are issued. Scope determinations expand existing orders to cover products that weren't explicitly named. Commerce initiates circumvention determinations that bring previously excluded products back under existing orders. An origin verification check you did in 2023 may not be valid against a 2025 scope ruling. Set up alerts for relevant AD/CVD orders in your product categories. When new orders are initiated, the tariff rate alerts watchlist will catch rate changes on the codes you're importing.

If you receive a questionnaire, retain trade counsel with EAPA experience immediately. The 200-day factual information deadline is absolute. The 30-business-day window for requesting administrative review is strict. The APO request is available from initiation. Missing any of these deadlines limits your options significantly.

Key Takeaways

• EAPA is codified at 19 U.S.C. § 1517 and implemented at 19 C.F.R. Part 165. The process runs on hard statutory deadlines: 15 business days to initiate, 90 days to impose interim measures (at "reasonable suspicion"), 300 days to final determination ("substantial evidence").
• The importer of record carries the liability. A supplier's misrepresentation of country of origin is not a defense to the evasion finding; it's relevant to penalty severity, not to whether evasion occurred.
• Interim measures can impose triple-digit AD/CVD cash deposit rates and live-entry requirements before a final determination. ICON EV (April 2026) showed that 519% interim rates can be challenged at the CIT, but most importers don't survive long enough to get there.
• Cooperation matters for how CBP weights adverse inferences, but not for the retroactive liability on entries already filed. Waaree fully cooperated in a 2026 determination and still faces five years of suspended liquidation.
• CBP's 2024 final rule (19 C.F.R. § 165.4, effective April 17, 2024) codifies administrative protective order access to business confidential information, a right the Federal Circuit established in Royal Brush (2023). Request the APO immediately upon receiving initiation notice.
• Transshipment through China is 91% of all EAPA cases; 78% of cases involve Chinese-origin goods. If you import wooden furniture, solar modules, steel pipe, mattresses, diamond sawblades, or seafood, the risk profile in your category is elevated. Verify origin before importing, not after the questionnaire arrives.

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When AD/CVD orders apply to your product, the full duty stack (cash deposit rate, base duty, and applicable Section 301 overlays) determines your actual landed cost. TariffClassify shows you the complete rate picture for any HTS code and country of origin before you commit to a sourcing decision. Check your duty stack free.