The Transition Engine Annual Report (TEAR) is due on March 31 for transition engines imported or manufactured during the 2018 calendar year, Environment and Climate Change Canada said in an emailed notice. "The purpose of this notice is to raise awareness amongst customs brokers and their clients (importers of off-road diesel engines)" of the deadline, the agency said. "If you import transition engines or machines containing a transition engine into Canada, or are a Canadian manufacturer of transition engines or machines containing a transition engine, you must submit" a TEAR, the agency said in an attached presentation.
CBP would like even more public feedback on how to modernize the agency's processes and regulations, CBP said in a notice. CBP said it is reopening the comment period until April 11 to allow for new input after it held a March 1 meeting to discuss a wide range of ideas for updates. The March 1 meeting included few mentions of exports, but the docket of the original request for comments includes multiple suggestions and criticisms on the export side.
CBP will in the coming days be issuing contingency plans and a frequently asked questions document related to its upcoming deployment of its new Form 5106 in ACE, said Randy Mitchell, director-commercial operations, revenue and entry at CBP, in an interview March 11. The transition effort follows CBP’s decision to stick to its March 16 deadline but significantly reduce the length of an outage related to the deployment in response to concerns from the trade community.
There's a consensus that CBP's Proof of Concept (POC) for blockchain using NAFTA and CAFTA certificates of origin showed that the technology deserves further consideration, said Emily Beline, senior attorney at FedEx, which participated in CBP's test through the company's customs brokerage, FedEx Trade Networks. Despite the enthusiasm, it's clear there are also many regulatory and legal issues that will need exploration, some of which were discussed in CBP's assessment of the POC (see 1903060043). Beline and others discussed blockchain as part of a March 8 panel at the International Trade Update at the Georgetown University law school (see 1903070025).
CBP’s planned deployment of its new electronic Form 5106 on March 16 will cause “unnecessary hardship for the trade” as a result of a lack of testing and training and some issues surrounding the planned hard cut-off for the old process, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America said in a letter to CBP dated March 8. Announced by CBP in February (see 1902200040), the new deadline does not leave adequate time for programming, testing and training, and a gap in availability could make life difficult for brokers, especially on the northern border, the NCBFAA said.
As part of its Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, the Philippines’ Department of Finance has created post clearance audit functions for the country's Bureau of Customs and announced a new prior disclosure program, which allows companies to minimize their penalties for errors and omissions on import documentation, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers alert. Post-clearance audits can include audits of importers, customs brokers, agents and “all other parties engaged in the customs clearance and processing functions,” according to the notice. Auditors can also review all export- and import-related records “required to be kept by law,” the notice said. The prior disclosure program, the notice said, allows the Philippines’ Bureau of Customs commissioner to consider previous disclosures of errors and omissions in goods declarations by importers “as a potential mitigating factor in determining penalties.” All disclosures must contain "the errors and payment of deficient amounts of duties, taxes and penalties."
Failure to provide the Canada Border Services Agency with proof of origin upon request, corrections to origin declarations, or reports of diverted goods are among customs compliance violations that will face steeper penalties starting in April, the CBSA said in a March 5 notice. The CBSA previously said it planned to increase the Administrative Monetary Penalties for trade compliance violations (see 1903040034), but had not provided details on the changes.
Mexico’s Tax Administration Service’s legal support office recently clarified that, for advance clearance ocean shipments, the identifiers “DA” and “FR” should be declared to SAT, the Latin American Confederation of Customs Brokers (CLAA) said in a March 1 circular to its members. That last identifier is for operations for which the exchange rate date is prior to arrival, which is the case for advance clearance shipments because SAT requires advance duty payment, CLAA said.
A freight forwarder locked in a legal battle with Nike continues to fight despite a July 2018 court ruling that found it liable for trademark infringement (see 1807200026). City Ocean Logistics is “exhausting all possible means of overturning” the New Jersey U.S. District Court’s order, “including seeking ‘an interlocutory appeal … in the event that its motion for reconsideration is denied in whole or in part,’” Nike said in a brief filed Feb. 27. That court order had found City Ocean and a customs broker, Eastern Ports, liable for trademark infringement related to shipments of counterfeit Nike sneakers for which they arranged entry and transportation. The court said the arrangement of transportation and creation of documents related to the shipments constituted the “use in commerce” of the trademarks under the Lanham Act, ordering Eastern Ports to pay $240,000 in damages. Nike now seeks to file an amended complaint and conduct discovery on the amount of damages it should receive from City Ocean.
Better sharing of data about companies with poor compliance history was among the changes cited as possible improvements during CBP's March 1 forum focused on creating a new customs framework (see 1812200003). "I'm challenged with antidumping to reach out to my importers when there's a new case to alert them of things that should be happening," said Lisa Gelsomino, CEO of Avalon Risk Management. "And while customs brokers do that too, we are all dealing with so many challenges in the supply chain today, the more that we can help people comply the better off we are and the better off CBP is."