Full ABI Edits for Prior Notice of Imported Food (Phase 3 of FDA/CBP Enforcement Plan) Has Again Been Delayed
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message announcing that it is delaying the installation of programming changes for enforcement of the Bioterrorism Act's Prior Notice (PN) requirements in its automated systems that were scheduled to become effective the morning of May 19, 2004. CBP states that these changes would have made failure to submit all mandatory PN data elements a cause for rejection by the Automated Broker Interface (ABI).
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According to CBP's message, CBP and FDA anticipate moving the software changes into production after a few weeks of additional monitoring and CBP will utilize this time to better identify and quantify the percentages of shipments that have been receiving warnings and noting their possible affect on port operations.
CBP notes that the delay in Phase 3 does not necessitate an automatic delay of the final stage (Phase 4) of Bioterrorism Act enforcement on August 12, 2004. CBP states that PN filers should assume that Phase 4 enforcement will begin on time on that date.
CBP states that filers should also remain cognizant that PN submission periods before the shipment arrival should take into account any possible time needed to deal with corrections required, either by the ABI system or by FDA. Simply filing PN within the minimum 2, 4, or 8 hour window will not allow time to review, correct, and submit corrected PN sufficiently in advance of arrival to avoid a PN refusal from FDA.
(CBP had previously announced that Phase 3 would be delayed from May 13, 2004 until May 19, 2004 due to scheduling issues associated with software programming. See ITT's Online Archives or 05/14/04 news, 04051410, for BP summary.)
CBP's ABI administrative message (Adm: 04-1300, dated 05/18/04) is availablefromBP by fax or email by emailing documents@brokerpower.com.