For years, Kloosterboer and Alaska Reefer Management have been using an exemption in the law to transport seafood from Dutch Harbor to Canadian ports and back into the states on foreign-flagged ships. Two Bering Sea seafood shipping companies, Alaska Reefer Management LLC and Kloosterboer International Forwarding LLC, challenging penalties that had been levied by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
For years, the companies have been using an exemption in the law to transport seafood from Dutch Harbor to Canadian ports and back into the U.S. on foreign-flagged ships. The exception, known as the “Third Proviso,” allows companies to bypass the U.S.-flagged vessel requirement as long as the route includes Canadian rail lines.
The plaintiffs argued that the route is expressly allowed by the “Third Proviso” and “by own published interpretative rulings that remain in effect.”