Fred Higdon, executive director of the Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of Northern California died suddenly on Oct. 4, following a brief illness, said the association. Higdon, 74, was executive director since 2008.
The Federal Maritime Commission is seeking comment on its heavily revised proposed rulemaking on Ocean Transport Intermediaries (here). While the original proposal (see 13053031) was a source of concern for the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (see 13041004), the updated version strips out a number of the controversial pieces of the rule (see 14092217). Comments are due Dec. 12.
The European textile and apparel industry is pushing for regulatory harmonization with the U.S. through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, namely by streamlining labeling rules and customs procedures, a European Union association called Euratex said in a position paper released during the last TTIP talks. The latest round wrapped up on Oct. 3, and negotiators focused on progress made in services trade and some technical regulations (see 14100616).
CBP is continuing to work on how to structure the planned customs broker continuing education requirements, said Troy Riley, executive director of Commercial Targeting and Enforcement at CBP. Riley spoke briefly on the subject during the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) meeting on Oct. 7. There's been a number of discussions on "what type of models should even be considered," he said. "There's been a discussion on a board of directors model, a market model," and consideration of how the Department of Education and Council for Higher Education Accreditation have handled accreditation, he said. There has not been a decision on where to go "just yet," he said. The question of how to handle continuing education accreditation has been a difficult issue as the agency works toward adding requirements (see 14041002).
CBP posted a draft update to the CBP and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) that includes the addition of a "Known Importer" indicator. The program, as suggested by the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, would allow brokers to flag entries for clients that have gone over a questionnaire providing to the broker various information on their importing practices (see 13041124). The flag is hoped to eventually allow the importer to obtain benefits from CBP, possibly including targeting. A CBP official recently said it would begin collecting such information in January (see 14091609). Earlier this year, NCBFAA asked CBP to create an entry flag for the program, which is an industry initiative rather than an official agency pilot (see 14041502).
A working group consisting of food, drug and device importers, customs brokers, express carriers and government representatives presented a lengthy list of recommendations to the Food and Drug Administration on how to improve its import process, during a Oct. 7 meeting of the CBP Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC). Trade members of COAC urged FDA to improve messaging and add new data elements and functionality to the Automated Commercial Environment, as well as allow for advance data submissions and improve outreach to the trade community.
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Livingston International faces an 85 million Canadian dollar ($75.5 million) class action lawsuit in Canada for its alleged failure to pay its brokerage employees for overtime work. According to a complaint filed Oct. 1 at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the customs brokerage and freight forwarder discouraged its employees from seeking overtime compensation. Livingston also instituted policies to discourage them from making overtime claims, such as requiring advance approval for overtime even though the nature of the brokerage industry often requires its employees to work extra hours on short notice, says the complaint.
CBP will take up an Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) recommendation hoped to simplify and improve intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement for the express consignment industry, the agency said in a document posted for the Oct. 7 meeting (here). CBP will provide a "proof of concept" to the UPS Louisville Port on Oct. 6, it said. "Through this process, CBP will offer the importer and U.S. ultimate consignee an abandonment option on detention notices for shipments detained by CBP on suspicion of trademark or copyright violations," said CBP's report on the IPR working group. "This change is expected to have a significant, yet positive impact on resources, as the express environment now accounts for more than half of all intellectual property rights seizures."
CBP enforcement procedure for Importer Security Filing continues to solidify as a number of major ports have outlined their positions for dealing with ISF violators, said Craig Clark, who manages the ISF program at CBP, during an Oct. 1 webinar. CBP headquarters revised its take on ISF enforcement in May, advising the ports to focus on the more egregious ISF violators (see 14052106) and "significantly late" filing. While CBP left the definition of what is significantly late "intentionally fuzzy" to allow the ports to develop their own definition to reflect differences at the port level, it's safe to consider significantly late as "having provided that ISF at such a time that you negatively impacted CBP's ability to target that cargo," he said.