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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.

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.

The Indian Central Board of Indirect taxes & Customs (CBIC) has introduced new regulations under section 156 read with section 28DA of Customs Act, 1962 related to Rules of Origin under Trade … agreements. These rules may be called “CAROTAR 2020” (Customs Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements). The CAROTAR 2020 shall come into force on 21 September 2020, thereby deemed to provide sufficient time for transition and to ensure that the prescribed/ required conditions be complied with.

ES valstybių narių jūrų vandenyse bendrąją žuvininkystės politiką reguliuoja ES institucijos ir, atitinkamai, jose išgautiems produktams gali būti pripažįstama ES muitinė kilmė, tačiau Jungtinei … Karalystei (JK) išstojant iš ES jos (JK) jūrų erdvėse ES taisyklės nebebus taikomos (planuojama nuo 2021 m.). Atitinkamai, pavyzdžiui, JK jurisdikcijai priklausančiose Šiaurės jūroje ar Airijos jūroje sugautos ir į ES atgabentos žuvies kilmę teks nustatyti pagal bendrąsias prekių kilmės taisykles ir ją apmokestinti importo mokesčiais (muitais) ES. Šios tendencijos skatina naujai pažvelgti į jūrų erdvėse sugautų bei išgaunamų prekių kilmės nustatymą pagal ES muitų teisės normas (Sąjungos muitinės kodeksą), kuris plačiau pristatomas bei nagrinėjamas šiame straipsnyje.

The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the European Union and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam will enter into force on 1 August 2020. In the article, we overview the benefits for trade it … will bring, the proof of origin requirements, transitional provisions, and the application of the FTA and the Generalised System of Preferences.

Reader's question: „Is there a database in the EU where we could verify the approved exporter's number, whether it is valid? If not, what would you advise how to verify it?“. We answer the question … and also point out the liability of the importer and of the customs broker, and provide an overview of EU databases for verification of some other customs-related registration numbers.

Taking a look back over the last couple of years – more precisely 15, when the WTO’s Doha Round was expected to end in 2005 – economic operators were facing the results of a multilateral approach … to facilitate global trade which clearly lagged behind its actual intentions. As regards preferential trade, the major challenge for economic operators in these times seemed to have been the confrontation with the strengthening of individual national proceedings resulting in more and more bilateral and partially plurilateral trade agreements. The spaghetti bowl was no longer a valued Italian ‘secondo piatto’ but a feared opaque and impenetrable mass of regulations of many different free trade agreements. As we know, this situation has not changed much since then – so companies simply got used to the fact that the exploitation of potential preferential benefits is bound to the prior analysis of the (preferential) trade relations of their destination market countries – bilaterally but also among each other. They cannot count on the advantages of a multilateral agreement with lowered or abolished tariff rates and harmonised rules.

Būtina pastebėti, jog tiek teoriniu, tiek praktiniu požiūriu viena iš dažniausiai nustatomų muitų teisės aktų pažeidimų rūšių (tiek Lietuvoje, tiek ir kitose Baltijos valstybėse) yra atvejai, … kai verslo subjektai, kurie importuoja prekes, pateikia muitinės įstaigoms galimai suklastotus ar esminių trūkumų turinčius prekių kilmės sertifikatus, patvirtinančius preferencinę (lengvatinę) prekių kilmę, taip siekdami išvengti didesnių muitų mokėjimo. Be to, ir besiformuojanti mokesčius administruojančių institucijų (muitinės) ir mokestinius ginčus nagrinėjančių institucijų praktika tiek Lietuvoje, tiek ir kitose Baltijos valstybėse, nustatant prekių muitinę kilmę, pastaruoju metu kelia vis daugiau diskusijų, o praktiką tokiuose ginčuose yra pradėjęs formuoti ir ES Teisingumo Teismas.