Official Luthiers Forum!

This quotes the CEO of Gibson, Chris Martin, George Gruhn, and others.
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlaye ... =140093803

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

Thanks for that link Tim

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

The August 31st NPR piece was a seriously flawed story, since no one seems to have done their background research: other than involving Gibson, the two raids over 1 1/2 years apart had little or nothing to do with each other, contrary to what was reported. The first raid concerned endangered Madagascar woods alledgedly logged illegally in a national forest (yet to be charged or proven); the latest raids involve non-endangered woods logged in Indian government controlled sustainably managed plantations, brought into the U.S. (as they have been for almost 20 years, by everybody) with full paperwork from both the Indian authorities and certification from the FSC.

Gibson’s August 24th raid issue isn’t as straightforward as it seems, since it was LMII who actually ordered and bought the wood, to satisfy a sale of theirs to Gibson; but rather than take delivery in CA and then spending money reshipping to Nashville, LMII simply had the wood drop-shipped (a common business practice) to the people who are in charge of warehousing woods for Gibson (so it wasn't going directly to Gibson's plant address). Gibson wasn't the one bringing the wood in, it was being imported by LMII.

As for the tariff code, it was entered wrongly on only some, not all, of the paperwork -- something LMII had spotted and was in the process of correcting (but unable to get an agency response to). Inconsistent tariff codes are something that's happened on a couple of our own shell import shipments when some desk jockey at the brokerage decides to change the correct tariff codes we supply (thus instantly converting a load of shell blanks into a shipment of "jewelry", for instance!).

Here's a statement from Natalie Swango at Luthiers Mercantile International (LMII), who imported the wood involved in Gibson's latest raids:

“The exporter entered the correct code for his country's export according to Indian customs. I incorrectly listed Gibson as the consignee on the Lacey paperwork...the material was destined for them, but at this time LMI owns and is (was, ?) warehousing it. The broker made a mistake and listed the material as veneers, although all other paperwork correctly listed it as fingerboards (they have remedied this with an oops letter). The warehouse employee incorrectly informed the feds as to the ownership (although they bill me for the storage fees). The officers incorrectly came to the conclusion that we are smuggling wood.”

Seems like the feds need to go after the guy that botched the paperwork instead of company that is trying to do right

Seems like the Feds need to back off and let people correct their paperwork if an error is made, before storming into a plant and sending all the employees home, and seizing the wood! They really are acting like "Jack Booted Thugs"! Even the IRS allows for corrections. There are people in the loop. People make mistakes occasionally. When the law is so poorly written that an item number or description makes you a criminal, there is a problem!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Hear! Hear!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Here’s a summary of the Gibson situation. India has for many years officially ruled that fingerboards (in their blank form) are legal to export, and that official Clarification is something that can't be argued by the U.S. government or anyone else (I have copies of the latest from July 13, 2011). This ruling is nothing new, since India has allowed many millions of fingerboards to be exported for decades with no problem. There are also other factors involved:

1) The U.S. has absolutely no laws prohibiting the use of Indian (or Madagascar!) rosewood and ebony as such, only general laws that require no tribal, state, national or international laws have been violated.

2) None of this has anything at all to do with overharvesting, illegal logging, or any other environmental issues. Veneers, guitars or anything else made of these same Indian woods would have been completely legal.

3) The supposed violations named in Special Agent Rayfield's warrant affidavit concern his private interpretation of Indian law about semi-finished raw materials or component parts. Lacey doesn't allow the U.S. to disagree or argue about another country's regulations, only to enforce their compliance (which in the matter of India were being complied with according to their own written document).

4) Lacey is what's called a "fact-based" as opposed to a "document-based" statute. In other words, simply possessing legitimate-looking paperwork won't protect anyone from confiscation, fines or imprisonment if indeed laws really were broken. It's the same legal principle that has always applied in U.S. mining law, that it's not how technically accurate the filed paperwork description of a claim's boundaries are but how it's actually marked out and posted on the ground.

Several complicating and confusing glitches were made on the paperwork from LMII's Indian ebony shipment, but what counts is whether or not any actual regulations were violated. They certainly don't seem to have been (in the case of India, at least), but it's up to the courts and not us to decide guilt or innocence. Hopefully, they'll toss this one out no matter how foolish it makes Special Agent Rayfield and the USFWS appear.

The Madagascar wood remains problematic since it does involve endangered trees, logging in a national forest, and a questionable state of political unrest in the country at the time the wood was exported with questions about the government's validity as a legitimately recognized power.

Just discovered (thanks to Lance Peck) is that counter to what I'd run across in a court decision about another agency, the Lacey Act DOES after all allow the U.S. to interpret another country's laws differently than they themselves do. There can be a violation even if the foreign law isn't enforced in that country, and even though the violation may not be a criminal one in the foreign country it will be here. (see: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/ ... Primer.pdf). In other words, you could be totally compliant according to foreign law as required by Lacey, and yet be arrested because the U.S. decides to interpret those laws differently! Am I missing something here?

The Lacey primer also states that for both paper and electronic submissions, the steps used in processing any submission will include:

"Declarations vetted for accuracy and compliance."

"Importer contacted if vetting reveals errors."

But Natalie at LMI says this not only didn't happen, but that FWS refused to talk to them when LMI found the error and tried to get it corrected:

"The broker for LMI had someone new working in their office who listed the "entry" as veneers <6mm despite all other paperwork listing it as sawn wood and fingerboards in excess of 6mm. The broker sent a letter explaining the error and attempted to contact FWS to correct the entry, but they refused to speak to him. A copy of the letter was sent to LMI as well as FWS.”

Here's another take from BH Patel one of the major exporters in India. I found this here.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-09-06/news/30119268_1_indian-exporters-gibson-henry-juszkiewicz/2

Exports of fingerboards, headstock, pickups and string-bridges made of rosewood and ebony are freely allowed under Indian laws, especially in the case of string musical instruments. Further, India allows exports of processed timber--sawn, planed and tapered wood boards.

"It's a strong European wood broking lobby that is fomenting trouble," said BH Patel of Mumbai-based Patel Wood Syndicate. "Indian exporters, unlike their foreign counterparts, do not sell wood through European brokers. We deal with foreign companies directly. European wood brokers have always disapproved our way of cutting deals directly."

Indian timber boards, plywood and teak veneers are of great value in the US, Europe and the Gulf. India shipped processed wood and wood products worth 2,000 crore last fiscal, government data show.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
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1109 Military Rd.
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(716) 874-1498

Thanks for posting, and will pass this along to a lot of other people and forums!

Here are 179 pages showing a Nashville, TN, court memorandum, a search warrant affidavit, and an Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) report concerning the 2009 Gibson raids and Madagascar and U.S. wood Tariff regulations (courtesy Stephen Bacon, on Musical Instrument Makers Forum/MIMF): http://www.scribd.com/doc/63755524/US-v ... -to-Strike.