Most finance leaders are trained to hunt for incremental margin wherever it hides. They renegotiate suppliers, streamline operations, and scrutinize spend. Yet one of the largest opportunities to recover cash often goes untouched, not because it lacks value, but because it has long been perceived as too complex to pursue.
Justin M. Sherlock, co-founder and CEO of Caspian, has built his career at the intersection of finance and operational scale. After years in private equity and later launching financial tools for fast-growing brands at Flexport, he saw firsthand how frequently companies overlooked duty recovery, even when the potential refunds were material.
“A CFO once told me, ‘We treat tariffs like a sunk cost. It’s too messy to reverse,” Sherlock recalls. “But here’s the truth, most exporters are sitting on a six or seven-figure duty refund. The only thing standing in the way is complexity.”
For Sherlock, that complexity represents not a deterrent, but an opportunity. As margin pressure intensifies across industries, finance leaders are being asked to unlock cash without introducing operational risk. Duty drawback, he argues, is one of the cleanest ways to do exactly that.
If a company imports goods, pays duties, and later exports those same goods or qualifying derivatives, the U.S. government allows it to reclaim up to 99% of those duties. Despite the scale of that opportunity, adoption has historically lagged.
“Many companies assume tariffs are simply the cost of doing business,” Sherlock explains. “In reality, a significant portion of that cost may be recoverable.”
So why do organizations leave that money on the table?
Traditional drawback processes are paperwork-heavy, highly manual, and often stretch across multiple years. By the time finance teams grasp the scope of the effort required, the initiative is frequently deprioritized in favor of more immediate operational demands.
“The process can feel overwhelming before it even begins,” Sherlock says. “And when teams are already operating at capacity, anything that looks administratively complex tends to stall.”
Complexity Is a Data Problem
Duty recovery is less about regulation than it is about information. Successful claims depend on gathering, cleaning, matching, and reconciling trade data across a fragmented ecosystem.
“The average company’s trade data is scattered across ERPs, freight forwarders, and customs brokers,” Sherlock notes. “To file a successful claim, you have to unify all of it.”
For finance teams accustomed to structured financial reporting, this lack of data cohesion creates both operational friction and compliance risk. “Compliance isn’t optional in this process,” Sherlock says. “Errors mean delayed or denied refunds.”
Making Recovery Operationally Viable
Sherlock believes the turning point for duty recovery lies in infrastructure. When the underlying data challenge is solved, the process shifts from burdensome to strategic.
Caspian was built around that premise. Its AI-native platform connects directly to trade systems, structures records, and provides a centralized view of every claim in progress.
“Data is the key, and it’s also the problem we solve,” Sherlock explains. “When you can automatically structure trade records and validate them in real time, the entire drawback process becomes faster and far more predictable.”
Equally important is embedding compliance into the workflow rather than treating it as a final checkpoint.
“We build compliance into the drawback process, from classification reviews to automated validation checks, so companies stay audit ready from day one,” he says. “No surprises, no black boxes.”
A Strategic Response to Margin Pressure
The timing is significant. CFOs today operate in an environment defined by cost volatility, shifting trade dynamics, and heightened expectations from investors and boards. Finding cash typically requires difficult tradeoffs, whether through cost reductions, pricing adjustments, or operational restructuring.
Duty recovery offers a different path.
“CFOs are under pressure to protect margins and find cash without cutting corners,” Sherlock says. “Duty recovery is one of the highest ROI ways to do that.”
Unlike many transformation initiatives, it does not require sweeping organizational change. Once the data foundation is in place, companies can pursue refunds without fundamentally altering their operations.
What changes instead is financial posture. Recovering previously paid duties improves cash flow, strengthens margins, and creates flexibility for reinvestment.
From Sunk Cost to Strategic Asset
Sherlock has seen what happens when organizations shift their mindset. What was once written off becomes a measurable value.
“There is a tremendous amount of recoverable capital hiding in plain sight,” he says. “Now that the process is finally becoming accessible, companies have an opportunity to rethink how they manage trade-related costs.”
For finance leaders willing to look beyond convention, duty recovery signals a broader evolution in how modern CFOs approach margin optimization, not just by reducing expenses, but by reclaiming capital that was always theirs to begin with.
The real question is no longer whether the opportunity exists, but how many organizations will continue to overlook it.
As Sherlock puts it, “If you’re leaving money on the table, we’re here to help you reclaim it. Let’s make global trade work for your bottom line.”
Connect with Justin M. Sherlock on LinkedIn for more insights.
