By: Arthur Bodek

On May 16, 2024, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the addition of 26 textile companies based in China to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List. The UFLPA creates four categories of covered entities. All of the new additions fall within the category covering “facilities and entities, including the [XPCC], that source material from Xinjiang or from persons working with the government of Xinjiang or the [XPCC] for purposes of the ‘‘poverty alleviation’’ program or the ‘‘pairing-assistance’’ program or any other government-labor scheme that uses forced labor.”

By statute, goods, mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in the XUAR or produced by an entity on one of the UFLPA lists are subject to a rebuttable presumption that they were made using forced labor and are inadmissible.

The announcement provides that by “focusing on cotton manufacturers based outside of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) that source cotton from the XUAR, their designation will increase transparency and ensure responsible companies can conduct due diligence on their supply chains to ensure they do not include goods made with forced labor.”

Since the UFLPA was signed into law, 65 entities have been added to the UFLPA Entity List involving various product sectors including apparel, agriculture, polysilicon, plastics, chemicals, batteries, household appliances, electronics, and food additives. Future additions to the list will be considered. A procedure also is available whereby parties may request their removal from the entity list.

A list of the newly added entities, said to include cotton traders and warehouse facilities within China, the majority of which operate outside of the XUAR, appears below.  The effective date of their designation is May 17, 2024.

Please do not hesitate to contact any of our attorneys for further information on the above or any other aspect of UFLPA compliance.