Day: October 17, 2018

The latest edition of this magazine from the WCO includes the following articles –

https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-87/

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES RELATED TO CUSTOMS CONTROLS IN FREE ZONES

The idea of a “free port” can be traced back to 167 BC, when the Roman Senate made a decision to turn the then Roman island Delos into a free port.  However, it is commonly agreed that the oldest free zone in its modern sense dates back to Shannon in Ireland, where the first Free Trade Zone, the most commonly referred to type of free zone, was established in 1959.  The same characteristics that make free zones attractive to legitimate business also lure fraudsters and criminals.  They can forge documents and use free zones to repackage or relabel goods, or manufacture and assemble new goods in these zones.  The transit and transshipment of goods pose the highest risk because it is easier for criminals to disguise the origin and final destination of goods.  This masking can be done by switching bills of lading once goods arrive in the free zone, switching containers and their contents, or simply by shipping goods to a different destination than the stated one.  Such practices pose risks in terms of revenue collection and public health, as well as security.  Recently, the OECD and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published a study: Trade in Counterfeit Goods and Free Trade Zones: Evidence from Recent Trends, which examines the use of free trade zones in the counterfeit goods trade.  In 2018, another organisation, the Economist Intelligence Unit, issued The Global Illicit Trade Environment Index, which also focuses on free zone governance.  Supported by research and case studies related to 5 major free zones, the Index, along with the OECD/EUIPO study, fuelled a much needed debate and brought the issue to the attention of policymakers across the globe.

https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-87/addressing-challenges-related-to-customs-controls-in-free-zones/

BLOCKCHAIN: UNVEILING ITS POTENTIAL FOR CUSTOMS AND TRADE

This section of the magazine gathers several articles on the “Blockchain,” a term which refers to a type of data structure that identifies and tracks transactions digitally and shares this information across a distributed network of computers.

https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-87/blockchain-intro/

THIS CBP BEAGLE ISN’T YOUR TYPICAL CANINE

An article about Frodo, a beagle, is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agricultural products detection dog. He has been working at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport since 2011.

https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-87/cbp-beagle/

RULES OF ORIGIN FACILITATOR: A NEW TOOL TO HELP TRADERS BENEFIT FROM TARIFF PREFERENCES

There are currently over 400 free trade agreements and preferential trade arrangements in place worldwide, which establish lower rates of Customs duties for certain goods provided that specified origin criteria are met.  To make it easy for traders to navigate the complex landscape of trade agreements, the ITC and the WCO have developed an online tool called the “Rules of Origin Facilitator”, which acts as a gateway to such agreements.

https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-87/rules-of-origin-facilitator/

WCO News article –

The idea of a “free port” can be traced back to 167 BC, when the Roman Senate made a decision to turn the then Roman island Delos into a free port.  However, it is commonly agreed that the oldest free zone in its modern sense dates back to Shannon in Ireland, where the first Free Trade Zone, the most commonly referred to type of free zone, was established in 1959.  The same characteristics that make free zones attractive to legitimate business also lure fraudsters and criminals.  They can forge documents and use free zones to repackage or relabel goods, or manufacture and assemble new goods in these zones.  The transit and transshipment of goods pose the highest risk because it is easier for criminals to disguise the origin and final destination of goods.  This masking can be done by switching bills of lading once goods arrive in the free zone, switching containers and their contents, or simply by shipping goods to a different destination than the stated one.  Such practices pose risks in terms of revenue collection and public health, as well as security.  Recently, the OECD and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published a study: Trade in Counterfeit Goods and Free Trade Zones: Evidence from Recent Trends, which examines the use of free trade zones in the counterfeit goods trade.  In 2018, another organisation, the Economist Intelligence Unit, issued The Global Illicit Trade Environment Index, which also focuses on free zone governance.  Supported by research and case studies related to 5 major free zones, the Index, along with the OECD/EUIPO study, fuelled a much needed debate and brought the issue to the attention of policymakers across the globe.

https://mag.wcoomd.org/magazine/wco-news-87/addressing-challenges-related-to-customs-controls-in-free-zones/

On 16^th October, Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer LLP published an article reflecting on the case of Mamancochet v Aegis & Others, in which a court in London was asked to decide if an insurer was prevented in paying out on a claim by a Lloyds standard clause which excused insurers from paying an otherwise valid insurance claim where “payment…would expose that insurer to any sanction, prohibition or restriction under [UN, EU or US sanctions]”.   The insurers unsuccessfully contended that the sanctions clause applied wherever payment would expose the insurers to a risk of being sanctioned by an authority.

See also https://wordpress.com/post/raytodd.blog/5022

The articles goes on to pose the question: where a sanctions clause is triggered, are obligations to be suspended or extinguished?  It also points out that the provisional view of the court was that the EU Blocking Statute would not necessarily prohibit a party from invoking a sanctions clause in the context of US sanctions against Iran – if it was relying on a contract term.

http://risk.freshfields.com/post/102f3v0/between-sanctions-exposure-and-commercial-liability-do-you-have-the-protection-y

See also the HFW briefing at –

http://www.hfw.com/Iran-sanctions-The-English-Court-steers-a-course

The Liverpool Echo on 16^th October carried a feature on a gang, led by an Ian Spackman.  The 9 men basked in the riches of their empire – taking luxury holidays, flashing watches worth thousands of pounds and parking expensive cars on the driveways of their often plush homes.  Cocaine, heroin and cannabis with a street value of £1.25 million was seized during the police investigation.  A separate plot involving some of the same cast saw them create a fake plumbing firm, P & M Plumbing, to import huge cannabis deliveries into the UK from Spain.  Class A drugs and cannabis were supplied to locations across England, including Blackpool, Cumbria and the North East.  Some of the cannabis formed part of another lucrative arm of the gang’s operation – the dispatch of the Class B drug to the Isle of Man, where the drug has a higher street value there than the mainland UK, and was smuggled in special compartments built into the floor of a van.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/inside-liverpool-drugs-gang-jailed-15289234