Summary: The Customs Act assigns importers and exporters parallel duties that do not usually converge. Yet Indian authorities have started to rope foreign exporters into importers’ alleged violations in the wake of the Act’s extraterritorial reach. This approach treats the supply chain as a single unit of liability. The Hon’ble Bombay High Court’s (“HC”) ruling in the case of Karl Mayer[1] firmly rejects such approach. Unless there is evidence of complicity, the exporter’s responsibility ends when the goods are shipped. What changes, however, when the exporter controls the importer? This blog attempts to shed light on this controversy, among many others.