A customs broker is off the hook for alleged violations of the federal pesticide regulations, after an administrative law judge on March 6 dismissed an Environmental Protection Agency civil penalty proceeding. EPA had accused Mara Shipping of failing to file required notices of arrival on several shipments of pesticides. It originally requested a $172,500 penalty, according to Mara. But Mara argued customs brokers aren’t responsible for filing notices of arrival. The fight paid off, as EPA withdrew its complaint in late February. EPA did not respond for comment on why it dropped the case.
LAS VEGAS -- CBP plans to roll out an electronic single transaction bond system (e-STB) in January and the agency is still on track to meet that goal, said Bruce Ingalls, director of the Revenue Divisions in the CBP Office of Administration. Ingalls and other panelists discussed plans for bonds April 7 at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America annual conference. Once the agency gets e-STB going, it will very quickly move to a wider scale e-bond system and "that will bring the continuous universe into the electronic environment," he said. CBP is still doing some work to identify the "impact points" of the planned changes, he said.
NEWPORT, R.I. -- A notice announcing the long-discussed "Trusted Trader" pilot is now facing additional legal reviews, which continue to delay a Federal Register notice that was expected to be out last month (see 14031203), said Elena Ryan, CBP director of Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEEs) Transition Team, The pilot would combine Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) with Importer Self-Assessment (ISA). "We were hoping to have that out by now but we did need to go through some additional legal reviews," she said at a Coalition of New England Companies for Trade conference on April 1. "A lot of the things you have been hearing about now for a while are all still largely intact," including a multiphase approach, she said.
CBP is expected to begin to test a program that would allow importers of branded merchandise to send information to the agency through the Document Image System (DIS), said Karen Kenney of Liberty International, who is current co-chair of the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) Trade Enforcement and Revenue Collection Subcommittee. Kenney, who is also chairman of the Coalition of New England Companies for Trade (CONECT) discussed COAC's ongoing work during a CONECT conference in Newport, R.I. on April 1. While not definite, a Federal Notice for the pilot may be out in early summer, she said.
Mexico's Diario Oficial of April 1 lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy and Secretary of Finance as follows:
CBP chose OHL to be one of the three customs brokers to test the Automated Commerce Environment (ACE) cargo release pilot program, the company said in an email. CBP recently expanded the ACE Cargo release test, meant to improve the process for releasing cargo into commerce, relaxing security requirements (see 13110115) for participants and opening it up to ocean and rail modes (see 14013112).
The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America and the Los Angeles Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders Association will discuss potential updates to customs broker permit regulations during coming events. CBP is looking to revise broker permitting regulations, which have been a source of worry among brokers (see 14022415), as part of a larger update to broker regulations. The NCBFAA event, scheduled for March 27 at 2 p.m., will include comments from association president Darrell Sekin on "why now is the time to have the discussion about Permits," it said (here). Meanwhile, the LACBFFA scheduled a town hall meeting on April 17 to "review the soon to be published comments made by the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America and find consensus among the members of the LACBFFA," it said (here). The NCBFAA is "still researching and evaluating what we are going to say" in the comments and the March 27 event will be a means for gathering input, said an NCBFAA spokesman.
A relocation service that brings household goods into the U.S. cannot serve as the importer of record for the goods because it lacks "sufficient financial interest," CBP headquarters said in a Feb. 6 ruling. The company, Masterpiece International, provides moving services for employees of multinational companies moving into the U.S. The company claimed that "the services offered give Masterpiece an interest in the imported household goods that goes beyond a mere nominal consignee," said CBP in HQ H242069.
Former CBP Acting Commissioner Tom Winkowski joined ICE as principal deputy assistant secretary at the agency, according to an ICE leadership chart and the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (here). Winkowski most recently was deputy commissioner at CBP, named to that spot once Gil Kerlikowske assumed the role of CBP Commissioner (see 14031016). Kevin McAleenan is listed as acting deputy commissioner on CBP's site (here). The Department of Homeland Security, CBP and ICE did not comment.
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