CBP Modifies WRO Against Supermax
CBP modified its withhold release order against Supermax Corporation Bhd. and its wholly owned subsidiaries Supermax Glove Manufacturing, Maxter Glove Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., and Maxwell Glove Manufacturing Bhd. due to "successful remediation of forced labor indicators in the company's supply chain." The modification, announced Sept. 18, will allow for disposable gloves made by Supermax and its subsidiaries to enter the U.S. "effective immediately," assuming they are "otherwise in compliance" with U.S. laws, CBP said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The WRO against Supermax was first issued in October 2021 after Supermax met "10 of the 11" International Labour Organization forced labor indicators, CBP said at the time (see 2110200057). "Until the manufacturers can prove their manufacturing processes are free of forced labor, their goods are not welcome here," CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner AnnMarie Highsmith had said.
As part of their effort to get the WRO modified, independent entities including Elevate investigated the allegations of forced labor at Supermax and found "system issues," Supermax said in a news release issued in April. In response, among other things, the company reimbursed its current and former employees for recruitment fees, refurbished employee living and dining facilities, provided additional rest days to workers and established mechanisms for workers to report concerns.
"Finding every last worker who paid a recruitment fee is our goal as we complete a total transformation of our labour policies," Supermax's founder Dato' Seri Stanley Thai said in the April news release.
So far, CBP has issued four modifications in fiscal year 2023, the agency said. This has resulted in the "improvement of living and working conditions for tens of thousands of workers, including the repayment of more than $50 million in withheld wages and recruitment fees used to trap workers in debt bondage," CBP said.
“Our vigilance on this issue is showing industry and the world that we are fully committed to elevating the ethical standard of goods entering the U.S. and ending forced labor,” Highsmith said.
Supermax did not respond to our request for comment.