MIAMI -- The Federal Maritime Commission will continue to monitor the effects of the recently created OCEAN Alliance, and still has the authority to block the alliance should it decide the new alliance has too much power over the shipping market, FMC Commissioner Daniel Maffei said at the Florida Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders Conference of the Americas on Nov. 14. Though sometimes interpreted as affirmatively approving alliances, FMC actually decides only whether to block an alliance, he said. That requires FMC to demonstrate in court that an alliance has an excess of market power, but FMC retains the ability to bring such a case at any time, Maffei said.
PROVIDENCE -- The addition of more Partner Government Agencies (PGAs) to ACE in coming months is likely to drive a difficult expansion in the data collected by the government, said Amy Magnus, director of customs affairs and compliance at A.N. Deringer, while speaking at the Northeast Cargo Symposium on Nov. 10. Despite significant progress in ACE in 2016, the new PGAs are bound to be a source of anxiety as 2017 approaches, she said. The "most chilling" agencies to be added are Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service "Core" and the Fish and Wildlife Service, she said.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a final guidance document (here) detailing its upcoming Voluntary Qualified Importer Program, a trusted trader program for food importers that will provide benefits including fewer examinations and expedited laboratory analysis. Under the program, importers will receive benefits at the border, including reduced sampling, in return for meeting certain requirements including importing the food from food exporters certified annually under the program by third-party auditors. FDA will begin accepting VQIP applications on Jan. 1, 2018, for participation in the program for the fiscal year beginning October 2018 and ending September 2019, it said (here). The agency will limit participation to 200 applicants for the first year, it said.
CBP recently completed and submitted its report to Congress on improving importer verifications through customs brokers, a CBP spokeswoman said Nov. 7. The agency provided the report, which was required as part of the customs reauthorization law's Section 116 (see 1608240026), to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees on Oct. 14, the spokeswoman said. The report was due Aug. 22, but the Department of Homeland Security delayed submission due to some concerns (see 1609130018). The committees didn't immediately comment.
Canadian eManifest filing requirements for freight forwarders take effect Nov. 7, requiring forwarders to transmit advance house bill data electronically to the Canada Border Services Agency as of that date, CBSA said (here). The Nov. 7 deadline begins a phased implementation similar to CBP’s “informed compliance” approach with Importer Security Filing. From Nov. 7 until Jan. 10, CBSA will not issue penalties for non-compliance and will “work closely with freight forwarders on corrective measures.” From Jan. 11 until July 11, non-compliant forwarders will be issued “zero-rated penalties (non-monetary).” Monetary penalties for non-compliance will begin July 12, 2017. Importer and customs broker eManifest requirements aren’t expected to become mandatory until 2018 at the earliest (see 1609280040).
Almost all the 21 “selected industry groups” interviewed by the Government Accountability Office “said that shippers in their respective industries using major West Coast ports were affected by recent port disruptions,” such as the labor impasse that virtually shut down 29 West Coast ports in 2014 and 2015 (see 1502230002), an Oct. 31 GAO report said (here). Higher costs, lower revenue and shipment delays were the “main types of short- and long-term financial and business impacts” the industry groups said their members experienced from the 2014 and 2015 port disruption, GAO said. Almost all cited “some form of increased costs, and several industry groups experienced multiple types of increased costs,” the report said. “Some of the impacts were short-term -- such as increased costs or shipment delays -- while other impacts were of longer-term duration, such as the loss of sales, customers, or market share.”
Arduous processes in Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Ghana are among the most significant customs-related issues that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative should report in its 2017 National Trade Estimate (NTE) Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, the U.S. Council for International Business (USCIB) said in comments to USTR (here). Mexico’s April 2015 amendment to its Customs Law Rules requires that importers of record provide documents reflecting the valuation of imported goods to Mexican customs brokers by the time of importation. But the requirement demands documents that are usually issued to importers after importation, or that are confidential or “non-existent,” USCIB said. The Mexican government has delayed enforcement of the requirement five times. Several customs regulations can’t be enforced because they are “impossible to implement,” a byproduct of the Mexican tax authority’s regular crafting of regulations without industry input, USCIB said.
A Florida tobacco importer faces criminal charges and possible prison time for allegedly evading $13 million in excise taxes, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida on Oct. 21 (here). Gitano Pierre Bryant Jr. miscalculated the amount of excise taxes he owed on large cigars he imported, despite repeated warnings from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) and a previous conviction, and falsified invoices to further lower his tax payments, the attorney’s office said.
CBP 's interim regulations for investigating allegations of antidumping or countervailing duty evasion diminish the effect of the new law by limiting what information is released publicly, the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in comments to CBP (here). "The results of CBP’s investigations will provide invaluable assistance to the trade community in recognizing and avoiding evasion schemes and will improve the informed compliance of importers and other supply chain participants," it said. "But these benefits will only be enjoyed if CBP issues public notices of its actions." The agency has received and responded to at least one allegation since the interim rules went into effect (see 1610190029).
ORLANDO -- CBP is working to allow Automated Broker Interface filers to directly file for Section 321 release from manifest, said Jim Swanson, director of cargo security and controls in CBP’s Office of Field Operations, during the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones annual conference on Oct. 17. But despite some calls from the trade community to allow Section 321 releases directly to consumers, CBP doesn’t have authority to deviate from normal release procedures, Swanson said. The agency is working with various associations, including express carriers, airlines, and customs brokers and forwarders, to respond to the growing amount of low-volume shipments across the U.S., Swanson said. The recent increase of the U.S. de minimis level from $200 to $800 has multiplied that type of shipment brought in by airlines at small airports across the country he said. Customs reauthorization legislation enacted earlier this year set the new de minimis level. The effects of the change are confounding CBP, which expected that any post-Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act influx in de minimis-related imports would mainly arrive via express couriers, Swanson said.