Nearly a quarter of small businesses in the United Kingdom have decided to stop exporting to the European Union due to Brexit costs and new paperwork, according to a March 29 survey by the Federation of Small Businesses. And 4% of small exporters already have decided to permanently stop selling to the EU following the new trade rules that took effect on Jan. 1, when Britain left the EU, while 11% of small exporters are at least considering completely halting their exports to the bloc. Importers are a slightly different story, with only 17% temporarily suspending purchases from the EU. The Brexit transition has been a logistics fiasco, with 70% of importers and exporters reporting having suffered shipment delays when moving goods around the EU in the first quarter, and 32% having lost goods in transit. To ease these costs, one in 10 exporters is considering establishing a presence in an EU country to ease the process, and more than half of small exporters and importers have sought professional advice to navigate customs, rules of origin and value-added tax obligations.
Country of origin cases
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of March 26 (some may also be given separate headlines):
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined an Italian gas equipment manufacturer $950,000 for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, OFAC said in a March 26 notice. The company, Nordgas S.r.l., knowingly reexported 27 shipments of U.S.-origin “air pressure switches” to Iran, OFAC said, and caused a U.S. company to “indirectly” export goods to Iran.
The Justice Department and Homeland Security Investigations can do more to track, analyze and disrupt illegal smuggling of guns into Mexico, the Government Accountability Office said in a March 24 report. The GAO said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives often receives incomplete data on thousands of U.S.-origin guns recovered in Mexican states, and said “additional data and analysis” by HSI “could enhance U.S. efforts to understand firearms sources and smuggling routes.” As a result, both agencies are “unable to assess” their progress toward stopping illegal gun exports and haven’t “fully developed performance measures” for those efforts.
The Magnitsky Act is set to sunset in 2022, and the bipartisan authors of the original sanctions bill asked civil society representatives in the U.S. and Africa how the renewal should be shaped.
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of March 24 (some may also be given separate headlines):
India's Director General of Foreign Trade will allow The Plastic Export Promotion Council to authorize Certificates of Origin (Non-Preferential), the agency announced in a March 17 trade notice.
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of March 17 (some may also be given separate headlines):
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a Cleveland process controls and instrument manufacturer more than $215,000 for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, OFAC said in a March 15 notice. The company, UniControl, Inc., exported goods to European companies despite knowing they would ultimately be sent to Iran, OFAC said. The agency said the company failed to “act on multiple apparent warning signs.”
Following a review of the European Union's sanctions regime on nine individuals in Egypt, the European Council removed their names from its sanctions list, the EC announced on March 12. The individuals originally were added to the sanctions' regime for their roles in the misappropriation of Egyptian state funds, the EC said. Having been found that their actions warranted their placement on the sanctions list by the council in 2011, the individuals were subject to an asset freeze and forbidden from doing business with EU nationals and legal entities. Following the most recent review, the EC determined the sanctions regime on these nine individuals had served its purpose.