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Tradefirst: tutorage arrives in Customs

Monday, 13 June 2011 09:01

Since the launching of the AEO program (Authorised Economic Operator) by the World Customs Organisation, many Countries and areas of the world have introduced a variety of maesures aimed to facilitate international trade and securize at the same time traffics. A country always in the first line on this particular front is Singapore, that developed already on 1989 one of the first "single window" systems worldwide, nicknamed "Tradenet", for the exchange of data between the commercial and logistics community on one side, and Customs, on the other side. On 2007, Tradenet evolved in a more sophisticated project, named "Tradexchange", where the dialogue between the private and public sectors has been extended also to other Government agencies. On 26 January 2011, Singapore Customs has launched a new initiative, named "TradeFIRST", aiming to put all the trade facilitation programs available in the Country under a single roof. One of the most interesting aspect of TradeFIRST is represented by the fact that each operator participating to this program, will benefit from a form of tutorage from Customs: a customs officer acting as "Account Manager" will assist the company in designing and implementing all trade facilitations that better suit its business needs, acting as a single contact point when liaising with customs.

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Free Trade Agreement EU-Korea: modalities of activation of the safeguard measures established

Tuesday, 31 May 2011 09:38

The EC Reg. No 511/2011 of the European Parliament and Council of 11 May 2011 establishes procedures for the application of the bilateral clause of safeguard foresen by the free trade agreement concluded between the UE and the Repubblic of Korea (see our article). According to the new Regulation, such measures can be activated only if a certain product is imported into the Union in such increased quantities and under such conditions as to cause, or threaten to cause, serious injury to Union producers of like or directly competitive products. A “Serious injury” occurs when there is a significant overall impairment in the position of Union producers, while the ‘threat of serious injury’ is deemed existent if there is a clearly imminent serious injury, based on verifiable facts and not merely on allegation, conjecture or remote possibility.

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Customs representatives: the direct representation must be always explicitly conferred

Monday, 30 May 2011 09:24

The principle has been affirmed by the EU Court of Justice, in the decision of the Sixth Section of 7 April 2011 (Case C-153/10, Staatssecretaris van Financiën/Sony Supply Chain Solutions (Europe) BV), which establishes at point n. 31 that the provision referred to in art. 5, par. 4, second indent of the Community Customs Code (EEC Reg. 2913/1992, hereinafter "CCC"),
providing that "the person who fails to state that he is acting in the name of or on behalf of another person or who states that he is acting in the name of or on behalf of another person without being empowered to do so is to be deemed to be acting in his own name and on his own behalf", implies that the power of (direct) representation must be conferred always in an express form and never in an assumptive way. The implications for customs representatives are important. To act as direct representatives of their clients, they must dispose, before each customs operation or groups of customs operations to be carried out within a certain period (e.g. during the year), of a written power of attorney (i.e. an unilateral act authorizing the representative to act in the name of the represented person). Without such power of attorney, those who submit a customs declaration in the mode of the direct representation, can be considered by customs authorities as acting as "indirect representatives", with the relevant responsibility in terms of joint responsibility for the customs obligation set forth in art. 201, par. 3, CCC).

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Tools for the measurements of results in Customs

Tuesday, 24 May 2011 10:55

Currently, the measurement and evaluation of performances is a practice adopted in whatever kind of organization, Customs and other public bodies included. Such tools, commonly known as “performance measurement systems” (or "PMS"), allow the optimisation of the organization's management process, properly adressing its decision making procedures, through the intelligent use of the amount of information and data available or aquired during the execution of its activity. For further information, see a recent WCO's research paper on this topic.

AEO: self-assessment questionnaire and explanatory notes updated to take into account the possibilities of mutual recognition

Monday, 16 May 2011 18:24

The TAXUD General Directorate (Taxation and Customs Union) of the EU Commission, has adopted a new version of the self-assessment questionnaire for the AEO certificate and its explanatory notes, to complement such documents with additional information concerning the cases of mutual recognition of the certificates issued by other Countries. Moreover, as of 24^th May 2011, the implementation of the befefits arising from mutual recognition of AEOs between the EU and Japan will begin.

(continues... in Italian)

News

Tradefirst: tutorage arrives in Customs

Free Trade Agreement EU-Korea: modalities of activation of the safeguard measures established

Customs representatives: the direct representation must be always explicitly conferred

Tools for the measurements of results in Customs

AEO: self-assessment questionnaire and explanatory notes updated to take into account the possibilities of mutual recognition

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