Court orders permanent injunctions vs. Asian/American toy importers

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

These products contained lead and lead paint that can be injested by children.

Parents and children can breathe a little easier today after a court banned two Asian/American companies from importing dangerous, substandard toys and products.

Complaints from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) alleges that the defendants were responsible for importing children’s products containing, among other things, lead, phthalates and small parts posing a choking hazard for children under the age of three. 

Based on those complaints, the Department of Justice announced August 4 that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered two separate consent decrees of permanent injunction against New York company Everbright Trading Inc., its owner Yuan Xiang Gao, and its operator/manager Rong Qing Xu, and New York companies Lily Popular Varieties & Gifts Inc., Great Great Corporation, and their owners and operators Li Jing and Cheng Feng You. The injunctions generally prohibit the defendants from importing and selling toys and other children’s products until certain remedial measures are implemented.

“Companies who do not comply with CPSC’s statutes and regulations regarding toys put American children at risk,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “Parents have a right to expect that the toys their children play with are safe.”

According to the complaints, the CPSC found that the defendants in both cases imported toys and other children’s products in violation of the Consumer Product Safety Act and the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

This toy contained small parts that can be swallowed by young children.

Since March 2013, the CPSC has collected from the Everbright defendants 97 samples of toys and other non-compliant children’s products from their import shipments at the Port of New York/Newark and the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach. 

Since December 2013, the CPSC has collected from the Lily Popular Varieties & Gifts defendants 72 samples of non-compliant toys and other children’s products from their facility in Maspeth, New York, and import shipments at the Ports of New York/Newark and Los Angeles. 

The violations in both cases include toys with illegal levels of lead, illegal levels of phthalates, and small parts that present a choking hazard for children under the age of three, as well as toys for small children that contain accessible batteries. Based on their findings, the CPSC has issued 41 letters to the defendants of Everbright defendants and 13 letters to the Lily defendants.

The decrees generally require the defendants to stop importing, selling, or distributing toys and other children’s products until they implement numerous remedial measures that will bring their operations into compliance with the law. 

These include, among other measures, implementing a product safety and testing program, hiring a product safety coordinator, having products tested by accredited testing bodies, and submitting to monitoring by the CPSC.