CBP released on June 22 its final rule on continuing education for licensed customs brokers. The notice details requirements for individual brokers to meet the continuing education requirements, as well as the accreditation process for courses. As expected, the agency will require brokers to complete 36 hours of continuing education each triennial reporting cycle, beginning with the cycle ending in 2027.
CBP and the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, or COAC, have "several issues where the COAC and CBP have agreed to disagree," in a customs modernization proposal, said Flexport's Caroline Dale (see 2306050069), but the lengthy work to come to consensus is just the start.
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CBP hopes that the customs modernization law is passed in time to use its authorities in the reprogramming of ACE, with a goal of providing CBP and partner government agencies "with better quality data, much earlier in the supply chain, often in real time," John Leonard, deputy executive assistant commissioner in CBP's Office of Trade, said June 20.
Customs brokers need more training before they get put in the difficult situation of having to determine whether their client may have committed fraud for the purposes of broker separation provisions of CBP's recent Part 111 rewrite, trade consultant Cindy DeLeon said during a panel discussion June 20.
CBP will reduce the number of continuing education credits required for the first triennial reporting period beginning in February 2024 under its upcoming final rule on continuing education requirements for customs brokers, CBP acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in opening remarks at the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting on June 14.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied customs broker license exam test taker Byungmin Chae's combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc of the appellate court's opinion landing him just one question short of passing the exam taken in April 2018. The court said Chae's petition was referred to the panel that heard the case, comprising Judges Pauline Newman, Sharon Prost and Kimberly Hughes, and was then circulated to all the judges in regular active service. A month prior, the court rejected duplicates of Chae's petition seemingly filed in error.
CBP released a new fact sheet June 13 detailing how customs brokers can update and submit information using Modernized ACE. The fact sheet, "Broker Permit Reporting Capabilities in Modernized ACE," goes over the required reporting needed in the ACE portal, the optional reporting and viewing that can be done in the ACE portal, and additional resources for brokers.
A logistics consulting company cannot act as an importer of record for various wireless electronics devices because it has insufficient financial interest in the goods at issue, CBP ruled June 5. The decision came in response to a binding ruling request from Your Special Delivery Services Specialty Logistics (YSDS).
The Commerce Department's new methodology for evaluating compliance with a 2019 antidumping duty suspension agreement's requirement to eliminate 85% of dumping has forced industry players to "bet their compliance" on "speculation and estimation," exporter International Greenhouse Produce (IGP) argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. The exporter added that Commerce also erred by "treating certain transactions involving U.S. brokers as U.S. sales," jettisoning the definition of "broker" seemingly settled in the 1960s (International Greenhouse Produce v. U.S., CIT # 23-00093).