In the Dec. 30 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
More than half of the sanctions-related enforcement actions issued by the Treasury Department in 2019 involved supply chain violations, signaling that supply chain compliance is one of the most important factors in avoiding violations, according to a December report released by Kharon, a sanctions advisory firm. The penalties are mostly due to deficiencies in three main areas of supply chain compliance, Kharon said: companies that operated in “heightened-risk jurisdictions,” companies that operated “existing and newly acquired” foreign subsidiaries, and companies that showed deficiencies while monitoring actors in its supply chain.
In the Dec. 23 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The U.S. delegation to the World Trade Organization rejected a proposal from countries on how to reform the appellate body (see 1912090031), saying that without understanding how the appellate body's overreach problem developed, there's no reason to believe that restating the constraints on the appellate body's authority will work. In December, when the appellate body ceased to exist because of U.S. refusal to allow new appointees, the National Foreign Trade Council hired Tailwinds Global Strategy's Bruce Hirsh to put forward ideas of how to resolve the impasse
The United Kingdom on Dec. 20 released summaries of its trade agreements with Morocco, Kosovo and Jordan to take effect after Great Britain leaves the European Union. The summaries contain information on provisions on intellectual property, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, rules of origin, preferential tariffs and quotas, and more.
A “new collection format” for the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls’ Commodity Jurisdiction form DS-4076 is now available on the Defense Export Control and Compliance System portal, DDTC said in a Dec. 23 notice. The changes “address additional sources of jurisdiction considerations and refinements to the supporting information,” the notice said. Previous submissions are available through the DECCS CJ Launching Pad, the agency said. DDTC is urging users with existing forms in “Draft” status to review the form before submitting to “verify accuracy of the entire form.” For completed forms, the agency said, the original submission’s documentation is available as a PDF, which “ensures the historical accuracy of the submissions, while keeping the system in line with the current version of the form.”
The European Union plans to finish rolling out its electronic licensing regime for dual-use exports by 2021, said Gabriela Stoica, a lead analyst of digital trade policy at the European Commission. The regime is being tested by four member states -- Latvia, Italy, Romania and Greece -- and the commission plans to add Belgium as a pilot tester soon, Stoica said. In the program’s next step, the commission plans to launch an e-licensing platform for steel and aluminum imports under the EU’s prior surveillance licensing regime. Stoica said those e-licenses will be “fully live with all member states” by Dec. 31.
Richard O'Neill was named partner at Neville Peterson, where he was previously an associate attorney, the law firm said in an emailed news release. O'Neill's work is focused on “all aspects of international trade and Customs law, including tariff classification, appraisement, country of origin and trade preference programs, Section 301 and Section 232 tariffs, Free Trade Agreements, export controls and trade remedies,” the firm said.
Singapore Customs issued a Dec. 19 circular about its upgraded free trade agreement with China (see 1910210033) and the deal’s rules of origin provisions, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2020. The circular outlines “key changes” to the rules for Singapore’s exports to China, including an expansion to the list of “Product Specific Rules,” updated criteria for determining the origin of products, information on submissions of manufacturing cost statements to qualify certain products for the Product Specific Rules and more.
The State Department published an interim final rule that will revise the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to provide definitions for activities that are not exports, re-exports, retransfers or temporary imports, the agency said in a notice in the Federal Register. The activities include launching items into space, providing technical data to U.S. people within the U.S. or “within a single country abroad,” and moving defense items within the U.S.