FedEx sues US Department of Commerce over export rules

FedEx Corp. has sued the US Department of Commerce in a district court, urging it to stop enforcing the Export Administration Regulations ("EAR").

The screenshot shows FedEx's statement on the US Department of Commerce litigation published on its website on June 24, 2019. [Photo: China Plus]

The U.S. express company made the suit in the District of Columbia, saying the rules are virtually impossible to follow because it handles millions of packages a day.

It said most packages are sealed when customers drop them off. It compares names and addresses of shippers and recipients against a government list of groups and people who could be national security risks.

FedEx said in a statement on its website that it "believes that the EAR violate common carriers' rights to due process under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as they unreasonably hold common carriers strictly liable for shipments that may violate the EAR without requiring evidence that the carriers had knowledge of any violations."

File photo of a FedEx truck on 3rd Avenue in New York City. [Photo: AFP]

The company argues that the EAR, as currently constructed and implemented, place an unreasonable burden on FedEx to police the millions of shipments that transit its network every day.

Meanwhile, FedEx earlier returned a parcel of Huawei phone destined to New York from London. The company later made an apology and claimed it as an operational error.