Tag Archive for Global Trade Compliance

GTM Industry Leaders Discuss Using First Sale and Duty Drawbacks to Increase Financial Returns

At a recent retail seminar held in New York on Financial Returns in Global Trade, speakers reported that retailers engaging in global trade best practices can expect to see substantial financial benefits, improved operations and lower compliance risks. This event, hosted by Amber Road and Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services, Inc., focused on how retailers can automate trade compliance for increased financial returns.

STR Financial Returns webinar_25459276-250px

Hung Lee, Senior Product Manager and Vin Ramundo, Solutions Consultant, both of Amber Road, spoke extensively on this subject and discussed methods for increasing financial returns such as utilizing First Sale and duty drawbacks. Ramundo noted that typical reductions include a five to eight percent reduction in transportation costs, ten to fifteen percent reduction in cycle stock inventory, and four to seven days’ compression in order cycle times.

“Typically, First Sale savings within the first five years are ten to twenty percent on duty,” commented Laura Siegel Rabinowitz, Of Counsel, Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg. First Sale bases the duty rate on what the manufacturer paid for the goods, rather than after a middleman’s markup, which is what Customs duties are typically assessed on.

Dawn Olesky, Director, Drawback Operations, Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services, Inc., noted that, “Duty drawback can offer as much as a 99 percent refund of import duties, taxes or fees.”

“With duty drawback, you have the ability to lower costs to customers and, therefore, should increase sales,” Olesky added.

Interested in learning more about how you can leverage compliance to increase financial returns? Join Amber Road and Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services, Inc. for a free webinar, Financial Returns in Global Trade: ROI of Compliance, on Wednesday, June 5th, at 2:00 pm.

Upcoming Export Compliance Webinar Series

Part Three: Shipment Screening & Documentation

Join Customs & Trade Solutions, Inc. and Management Dynamics for a complimentary three-part Export Compliance Webinar Series, which will address the three key steps of any Export Compliance Program (ECP): Restricted Party Screening, Product Classification, and Shipment Screening and Documentation.

The third and final webinar in this series will be held on Friday, November 18th at 2:00pm EST and will review Shipment Screening and Documentation, the final step in building an export compliance program.

During this webinar, we will discuss key best practices related to automating your export compliance process, including:

  • The importance of transactional screening and why it is a necessary requirement in any compliance program
  • How managing product compliance details can help validate the data used on export documentation and reduce delays at the border
  • How to leverage the data from the export order to automatically determine and create key export documents and file directly with AES

Speakers will include:
Suzanne Richer, President, Customs & Trade Solutions, Inc.
Sanjeev Williams, Product Manager, Management Dynamics

Join us to learn how you can take the next step in establishing an Export Compliance Program!

TALIS Group Centralizes its Global Trade Compliance with Management Dynamics’ Export On-Demand

Management Dynamics, a leading provider of global trade management solutions, today announced that TALIS Group, a world-leading provider of water valves and services for the whole water cycle, has gone live with the Management Dynamics’ Export On-Demand solution for restricted party screening (RPS). Deploying Export On-Demand is a foundation technology for TALIS’s goal of centralizing and automating its global export compliance processes.

Over the past year, the company’s European group has acquired multiple companies that now operate as TALIS Group subsidiaries, prompting TALIS to consolidate management of its global trade compliance capabilities. Since the beginning of May, Management Dynamics’ Export On-Demand solution has been running at all German entities in TALIS Group, with additional European entities scheduled to come online in stages over the coming weeks.

For more information please click here

 

Upcoming International Trade Compliance Seminar

The Life Sciences Summit on International Trade Compliance is coming up soon.

On October 22-23rd, trade compliance experts in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industry will gather in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia for updates and best practices for importing and exporting their products while remaining compliance with CBP, BIS, and the FDA.

Featured speakers include:

  • FDA Address - FDA Perspective on Importing Products in 2010Life Science Trade Compliance Conference
  • Domenic J. Veneziano, CDR, U.S. Public Health Service, Director Division of Import Operations and Policy, Food and Drug Administration
  • Keynote Address – Global Trade Compliance and the ‘Trusted Trader’ Concept”
  • Marianne Rowden, President & CEO, American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI)
  • Bradd M. Skinner, Director, C-TPAT/ Industry Partnership Programs, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
  • Craig Thurber, Section Chief, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, IPR Center, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

For additional information and to register, please visit the Center for Business Intelligence, who is hosting the conference.

You can also get additional details in their press release.

medical_technology_trade_complianceLeading Medical Technologies Company Automates Trade Compliance

A leading medical technologies company ships products from over 145 locations and faced an increasingly complex supply chain spanning international borders, time zones and multiple regulatory environments. And with subsidiaries, suppliers, distributors, manufacturing facilities, carriers, brokers, and customers located all over the globe, operations were fragmented and difficult to manage.

By automating trade compliance, the company:

  • Streamlined its global trade compliance process
  • Minimized fines by improving licensing accuracy and efficiency
  • Reduced cycle time by preventing shipment delays
  • Increased visibility and availability of data between trading partners and business units
  • And, reduced risk by complying with country specific regulations

Learn how this Fortune 500 company achieved these results.

Bribes & Handbags: Bourke Convicted of Violating FCPA

Frederic Bourke, namesake of handbag company Dooney & Bourke, was found guilty today by a US jury of violating the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (commonly called FCPA).

Jurors found Bourke conspired with Czech expatriate Viktor Kozeny to bribe to Azerbaijan leaders including former President Heidar Aliyev to spur the sale of the state-owned oil company.

Bourke was accused of conspiring to violate the FCPA, conspiring to violate money-laundering laws and lying to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was acquitted of money laundering. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said she won’t impose the 10 years prison sentence that prosecutors said Bourke faced.

Bourke, a Greenwich, Connecticut, entrepreneur who launched startups in the home-building, accessory and biotechnology industries, denied knowing of the bribes. His lawyers said Kozeny stole more than $180 million from Bourke and other investors including the hedge fund Omega Advisors Inc. and the insurer American International Group. A Bourke investment vehicle put up $8 million in the deal.

The alleged co-consipirator, Viktor Kozeny, also known as the Pirate of Prague for his underhanded dealings in the Czech Republic during privatization of industries there in the early or mid-1990s. He is currently a fugitive living in the Bahamas.

This conviction is significant, as the US ramps up enforcement of the FCPA. This also sets a precedent for future cases, as charges for violating the FCPA have not led to many convictions in the past.

Read the complete article at Bloomberg News.

Global Trade Alert

The Global Trade Alert is a great tool to get updates on all the latest trade news – around the globe. Their tagline is “Independent monitoring of policies that affect world trade” and that pretty much sums it all up. They cover import regulations, export regulations, new tariffs and duties, free trade agreements, licenses, and much more.

And, the best part? Customizable RSS Feeds! You can select the affected trading partner, country/trade region, and the specific industry to make an RSS feed based on your own interests. So, if you’re a Macedonian musical instrument-maker exporting within the EU, you can have your very own RSS feed.

Or you can go the “old-fashioned” route and get customized email alerts too.

Japanese Trade Compliance

Recently I discovered the blog “Global Trade Compliance: International Trade compliance news and update for Japan, US ,and other countries.” As a US-based trade compliance blogger I find it interesting to see the news from the Asia Pacific region. A lot of global trade news is focused on the US and EU, as well as India and China, so it’s nice to see another perspective.

Also interesting is the similar themes across global trade compliance enforcement. Seems like everyone trying to export technology to the frequently sanctioned countries (Iran, North Korea, etc) gets busted. Take this person, for example:

“According to various newspaper report, the president of small trade house in Tokyo, Toko Boeki, and the president of two other companies who cooperated with Toko Boeki were arrested in violation of Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law (“FEFTL”) by attempting the export of magnetic measuring devices supposedly to North Korea via Myanmar and Malaysia.
A magnetic measuring device is considered as dual-use item which can be used for development and manufacturing of missile. Any of news report don’t indicate the ECCN for this device, and reported as violation of Catch-all control. In Japanese classification, it is reported as Category 16 in Export Trade Control Order Appendix I, which covers almost all general industrial goods except food and wooden products. “

Export Explainer

Export Compliance:

Ensure you and your customers are not exporting to countries embargoed by the US, UN, EU, Canada, Japan, and more. Learn more in this 3-minute video: Introduction to Automating Export Compliance.

TV Showdown: Import Ban on Sharp LCDs

I recently rediscovered a Best Buy gift card buried in the back of my wallet, probably hiding there since Christmas. I have determined the best way to spend it is on a shiny new flat screen TV. Frankly it’s almost embarrassing when friends come over and see my 19″ Cathode Ray TV/VCR combo. Until I pop in their favorite movie on VHS, that is.

sharp aquos bus

Where will they park the bus?

Looks like I won’t be able to purchase a shiny new Sharp Aquos with my giftcard.

The US International Trade Commission has upheld a ban on imports of Sharp LCD screens and monitors. Competitor Samsung is claiming that Sharp is using their patented invention:

“In a notice posted on its Web site today, the ITC said unlicensed Sharp LCD devices, including display panels and modules, and LCD televisions made overseas that use Samsung’s patented invention should be banned from the U.S.

In its complaint, filed in December, Samsung named models in the Aquos line of high-definition TVs as among those made and sold by Sharp that violated the patent.

The ban is subject to review by President Obama, and the underlying patent case can be appealed to a U.S. court that specializes in patent law.”

The ban specifically relates to the patent referred to as “Liquid Crystal Display having wide viewing angle.” The commission has not yet issued a final ruling, but the Sharp Aquos may soon be in short supply here in the US – time to stock up?

Import Compliance Solutions

Automate import compliance and stay ahead of import bans. Ensure accurate duties, quickly classify products, and pre-clear shipments.

Trade Compliance Newsletters

Although RSS feeds are speedier, some still prefer the good old fashioned email update.

These are some very helpful e-newsletters offered for free by colleagues in the international trade compliance niche. Enjoy!

And of course you can also subscribe to my blog posts via email.