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Ensuring the enforcement of a national strategic trade control (STC) system is a key requirement for all Customs administrations. Strategic goods comprise weapons of mass destruction (WMD), conventional … weapons, and the materials, technology and equipment that may be used in their development or delivery. Many of these commodities have both civil and military applications and are called dual-use goods.

‘Importer’s knowledge’ allows the importer to claim preferential tariff treatment based on evidence they have obtained about the originating status of imported products. This evidence must be … in the importer’s possession, be in form of supporting documents or records which may be provided by the exporter or producer and provide evidence that the product qualifies as originating.

The authors of this article argue that harmonization should be high on the agenda both of those who make, and of those who enforce, legislation. To illustrate, they explain some of the issues … faced by businesses due to the lack of harmonization of rules, or to the non-harmonized implementation of these rules. Three topics are addressed: the difficulty of identifying preferential rules of origin for a given HS code; the process to obtain a Customs registration number in the European Union; and the implementation of the AEO Programme in Ukraine.

Trade agreements have their own unique rules of origin to determine whether something has preferential origin. They also each have their own rules on how preferential origin should be evidenced. … This can be confusing when a business is using multiple trade agreements. The focus of this article is on a particular method of evidencing preferential origin: importer’s knowledge. This is a relatively new concept in the EU, first appearing in the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, replicated in the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and now contained in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

European Commission released Guidance on preferential treatment, origin and customs procedures to assist EU businesses importing from and exporting to the UK. One of the questions clarified: … “Goods originating in the EU are exported to the UK and released for free circulation there. They are not transformed. Can they come back to the EU without paying duties?”. The only suggestion is to customs clear them as returned goods. Does the same principle apply to all EU FTAs? What are the requirements for returned goods to claim “zero duty”? What about “zero VAT”? Other requirements like Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary?

Product-specific rules (PSRs) of preferential origin are the requirements for a product, which incorporates non-originating materials, to be originating in a country. PSRs are created based on … origin criteria. One criterion is a change in tariff classification (examples of other criteria: a production process, a maximum value or weight of non-originating materials). It means that any non-originating material used in the production of the product must be classified in a chapter, heading or subheading1 other than that of the product.

After months of wrangling the EU and the UK agreed upon the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on the 24th of December 2020. This trade agreement came as a huge relief to most traders and … businesses who have exposure to the EU/UK supply chain. However, it was not long before this ‘Christmas present’ revealed some very significant conditions that invalidated many of the benefits that most thought the TCA presented. For Customs and trade professionals, this would have been anticipated to some extent, but to regular business owners who had come to rely on the frictionless trade that the EU’s Customs Union and single market facilitated, these conditions came as a very unwelcome shock.

2020 has presented a new possibility for the trade with Ukraine – cumulation. Cumulation is one of the rules of origin, provided by the Regional Pan-Euro-Med Convention. This rule applies, when … two or more countries have identical rules of origin and trade agreements between each other. This possibility as well has to be acknowledged by the parties and published.

What does the EU-UK TCA mean for businesses that sell finished goods of EU origin to EU customers from the UK, and vice versa? This article addresses questions increasingly asked by businesses … with distribution centre models. Specifically, questions relating to how to mitigate customs duty when trading originating goods between the UK and the EU in 2021.

We overviewed the EU requirements for an EU exporter to get the Exporter Reference Number to include in the statement on origin (in Part I) and continue answering these questions: What is the … Exporter Reference Number of the UK exporter? Who may act as an EU/UK exporter? What is a “commercial document” on which the statement on origin may be made out?

Zero duties in the EU-UK trade will apply only to originating products. In most cases the proof of origin will be the statement on origin made out by the exporter in a commercial document. Reader’s … questions: „There is an Exporter Reference Number indicated in the form of the statement on origin. When and how should an EU exporter obtain it? How long does it take? May the exporter issue the statement on origin after exportation of the goods?“.

On 24 December 2020 European Commission announced that an agreement with the United Kingdom on the terms of future cooperation was reached. The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement shall be … provisionally applied as of 1 January 2021. It provides for zero tariffs and zero quotas on all goods that comply with the appropriate rules of origin. What are these rules and the documents proving the originating status of the goods?

The state (Republic of Lithuania) has delegated to the Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Crafts the task of issuing certificates of non-preferential origin for goods exported to third countries. … Every year, the Vilnius Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts issues about 7,000 certificates to exporters. Most of them are issued for transportation of goods to Uzbekistan, Belarus, China, Ukraine, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, India.

The WCO Secretariat has published an update of the Comparative Study on certification of origin, the previous version of which was issued in 2014, in order to take into consideration new trends … both on non-preferential and preferential origin.

Reader's question: Can anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties apply simultaneously to the same product? In response to this question, here we provide a practical example of importing electric … bicycles from China and review trade defence instruments - anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard duties.

The global market and increasing competition among market participants encourage unfair trade practices. Various anti-dumping measures are in place to stop unfair trade and protect EU producers. … The number of anti-dumping measures is growing every year in the EU, which ensures fair trade and reduces the formation of monopoly positions on the market. From 2019, the EU more focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to protect them from unfair trade by simplifying procedures. The anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures have led to an average reduction of 80 per cent in unfair trade. This shows that the anti-dumping measures in the EU are working effectively.

The article seeks to identify legal issues related to the implementation of economic activities in maritime areas by analyzing the customs law of the European Union (EU) and its regulations (Union … Customs Code (UCC) and the regulations related to its implementation) defining the boundaries of the EU customs territory, determining the customs origin of goods and describing the order of the customs procedures. The author also presents suggestions on how the identified legal issues should be addressed by amending EU customs legislation and what are the tax risks associated with them.