Lawfirm

Having a plan is so important in our success in life and health.  I think this quote says it well: “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”  When something is planned out and written down, not only is the motivation kicked up, but also the personal challenge to reach that goal increased.  Besides, it is a written plan right in front of our face, and not something that we are only thinking about and may put into place someday.  See the difference?  If we are good stewards of our money for example, we are budgeting for expenses with our income and successfully paying our mortgages, rents, and overall bills.  Without that budget plan in place, I am sure we can all agree a huge financial mess would be the result of our irresponsibility.  Planning takes responsibility and a commitment to do what is best for our life and health.  Failing to plan sets us up for failure.  Let’s get back to the plan and what it takes to put a health related goal into p...

For those of you who might not know it, botulism is bad for you. According to Wikipedia, it is a rare and potentially fatal condition caused by toxins produced by certain bacteria. A common cause of the rare condition is improper food preservation. But, there is an upside to botulism, particularly for the Hollywood red carpet set and others worried about the perception that they may be aging. Where that perception is caused by fine lines on the forehead and face, the botulism toxin , when properly administered, might be just what the dermatologist ordered. As it turns out, that means that some of this stuff is imported for cosmetic use. And therein lies the rub. We have botulism toxin imported for cosmetic use. How should that be classified? We get the answer from the current Customs Bulletin , in which CBP proposes to revoke its prior decision in Ruling N209720.  The new ruling will be HQ 227295. The two products here are FDA approved Botox and Botox Cosmetic. [Note from Larry: Bo...

Brand : Schmitten Company : Rajhans Group Brand Analysis Count : # 550 The Rs 4500 chocolate market has a new player- Schmitten. Schmitten is a Swiss chocolate made in India ! or to be fair, this chocolate is positioned as a Swiss chocolate. The new brand comes from Rajhans group which is a Rs 3500 crore real-estate developer.  The new brand- Schmitten is positioned as a premium brand competing with the like of Cadbury Silk and Temptation. Schmitten is the mother brand which is being launched as a moulded chocolate like Dairy Milk. Schmitten also has another product - Hoppits which is a bar-chocolate like 5 Star. According to newsreports, the chocolate although made in India is made with machine imported from Switzerland, Denmark and Germany and uses Ghanian coco beans and Swiss recipe. Priced at Rs 80 for 70 mg pack, the brand resides at the premium end of the chocolate market.It is priced competitively for a luxury brand. Schmitten is launched with the endorsement from Priyanka C...

In my daily walk of being a trainer and consultant, I work with many beautiful people who want to lose weight and get healthy.  Guess what, they not only know and tell me that they are fat, but carry a heavy emotional burden of unhappiness about it.  I or anyone else does no need to verbally slap them across the face by telling them what they already know.  For some reason our society feels the need to point out the obvious as if the person does not know their own condition.  Who am I or you to judge anyone without walking in their shoes physically or emotionally?  I am blessed on a daily basis with gaining insight into the lives and emotions of those who are fat challenged, empathetic to many of the shares and driven to help them adopt a healthy lifestyle. A fat person does not need to be told their fat just as a skinny or muscular person does not need to be told what their body looks like.  Standing in the truth of our own mirrors tells that story.  ...

The last ten pounds can be a struggle, especially when everything comes to a screeching halt.  The scale is no longer budging, frustration is happening and the stress of it all is putting the adrenal glands on overdrive.  A cortisol rush is the last thing our bodies need when we are trying to lose that last ten pounds as studies have shown that it hampers our ability to lose weight.  The important thing to understand is that plateaus are normal in our journey of health and weight loss.  Also, adjustments with our food intake and exercise program will need to be reviewed several times along the way.  Keep up the positive and progressing with your program regardless of what the scale says.  Many factors are at play when the body begins to slow down and usually a simple review and change up of the program gets things moving again. Things to consider: are you eating enough? The body is a wonderful machine and knows exactly what to do with the food we consume an...

Sometimes even I hate lawyers. Part of the job is to watch for developments in the law and advise clients on how those developments might impact them. Because lawyers are careful by nature, we have a tendency to see the worst possible outcome and tell our clients to be prepared for it. If I needed a literary analogy to insert here, I could do no better than Henny Penny . On the other hand, what happens if we fail to point out the worst possible outcome? Well, let's just say we might not be doing that part of our job that requires lawyers to keep their clients informed. What does this have to do with Trek Leather ? Many of my colleagues in the customs bar read the decision as greatly expanding the potential for customs penalty cases to be brought against individual corporate officers and compliance professions. Unfortunately, they are not wrong on that score. But, I think they may be overwrought. Just to recap, the Federal Circuit decided in Trek Leather that the president and sole...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection takes a lot of heat for not being terribly responsive when it comes to ruling requests. I know, because I have thrown some of that heat. It is very difficult to develop a business plan when the importer does not know the applicable rate of duty. As a general rule, Customs does a good job of getting rulings out. Often times, those are well within the administrative guidelines for timeliness. But, when making that determination is difficult enough to require input from Customs Headquarters, where there is an international dispute about the correct classification, or when another party already has the issue before Customs, things can quickly get bogged down. That causes a lot of frustration. Apparently, Customs is taking bold new steps to satisfy the needs of importers. I know this from ruling N246515 . I found this ruling while looking for rulings with a fairly current date. I saw that N246515 references the importer's letter of September 18, 2014....

Xcent launched by Hyundai in the sub-meter category has been well received by the customer. According to newsreport, the brand has sold around 35000 units since its launch. To boost the existing success,the brand now has decided to leverage its prized asset- the brand ambassador- Shah Rukh Khan.   SRK has been the brand ambassador of Hyundai for the last 16 years. According to NDTV , this 16 years association is a record for any brand-celebrity in India. From the launch of Santro to the i10, SRK has been the integral part of the brand campaign for Hyundai.  But more than the brand promotion, it is the performance of the products that create success in the Indian auto market. SRK in the new campaign for Xcent amplifies the brand's promise of " more value for money ".  Watch the ad here : SRK Xcent In the new campaign, the brand had added an additional claim of " The real family sedan ". The well made ad pitches the brand against the tough competition from the lik...

We can all get stuck in a rut, feel funky, or backslide on our health and fitness programs.  Burnout and frustration are top reasons for giving up and falling into old habits and it is at that point where we can dig our heels in complete rebellion turning our noses up at the changes that need to happen to live a healthy lifestyle. The truth within each of us paints a different picture and honestly, we all want to be healthy and look the part but to really be healthy and feel healthy, you have to change to experience a change.  That is the truth with all things in life: change requires change.  If we are unhappy with our health, our body, our jobs, where we are in life, people in our life, our spiritual life, our emotional self and the list does go on and on, a deliberate choice to change to change needs to happen.   Sometimes it is a difficult process to implement the necessary changes and our rebel self can surface and try to sabotage our attempts to do somethi...

Want to see the tip of the spear of a new aspect of the practice of customs law? Take a look at United States of America ex rel. Customs Fraud Investigations, LLC v. Victaulic Company . This is a decision of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. What we have here is a False Claims Act case brought by a private company calling itself Customs Fraud Investigations, LLC. CFI scoured through ships manifest data to find products it believed might be lacking correct country of origin markings. It then compared the import data to pictures of the products it found on eBay to confirm its suspicions. Armed with that data and the possibility of a financial windfall, CFI filed a case against Victaulic in the federal district under the False Claims Act. I hereby dub this the birth of the customs troll. Compare that to the patent troll and you will see why. In the end, CFI lost (at least so far), but how we got to that point is interesting. The False Claims Act i...

How many times do we justify being unhealthy with the “it’s only” intro.  Whether it’s only five pounds, two cookies, a bag of chips, one alcoholic drink, or one missed workout, it is easy to get hooked into the trap of “it’s only”.  What happens more than not is “it’s only” turns into a daily use of trying to get away with something that leads us in the opposite direction of our goals.  The five pounds turns into ten, the two cookies turns into five, one missed workout turns into several and you get the picture that is painted with two innocent words. The “it’s only” dilemma can hit at any time, but I find it creeps back into the picture once results from following a great nutrition and fitness program have been achieved.  Further, I have seen it completely snowball into a return back into old unhealthy eating patterns and sedentary lifestyle.  The two words are not as innocent as one might believe and especially if an inner strength to follow through on the on...