World Trade Organization (“WTO”) Members laid out several key principles for determining the customs value of imported goods in the 1995 Customs Valuation Agreement (“CV Agreement”) with the aim of ensuring that the value of Members’ tariff concessions would not be nullified or undermined. Nonetheless, the WTO is – incorrectly – seldomly considered as a relevant forum for addressing customs valuation issues. This blog post highlights two avenues at the WTO for dealing with customs…
On 15 February 2023, the World Customs Organization (“WCO”) hosted a Symposium on E-Commerce and Customs Valuation. Several key challenges were identified: the fragmentation in the system due to data overload from low level shipments; the consequent shortfalls within data systems and processing; and compliance and enforcement challenges. The sessions provided a high level overview from the WCO and World Trade Organization (“WTO”) of the current scope of challenges and questions to consider, and…
In November we reported that the European Commission announced plans to include binding valuation information (“BVI”) decisions in its customs legislation. The Commission has published the draft Delegated Regulation and obtained feedback from a public consultation, which ended on 18 January 2023. The Commission describes this move as the completion of an already well-established legal and operational framework for issuing decisions relating to binding tariff classification information (“BTI”) and binding origin information (“BOI”). The aim…
Imports of products in carbon-intensive industries outside the EU will soon be regulated by the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism On 13 December 2022, a provisional agreement has been reached between the EU Council and the European Parliament on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (“CBAM”). This mechanism will be set up to align the price of carbon for EU products covered by the EU Emission Trading Scheme (“ETS”) with the price of carbon for imported goods…
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions & Export Controls Update Blog published “Additional duties on goods originating in Russia and Belarus as of 25 March,” which can be viewed here.
Recently the EC has published an update to its “Guidance on non-preferential rules of origin” (available here). The prior version dates back to December 2018. Except where preferred tariff measures are involved, the non-preferential rules of origin apply to products declared for release for free circulation in the EU for the purposes of implementing the Common Customs Tariff. They are also used to implement additional anti-dumping and origin-marking procedures (i.e. “made in…”-marking) created by Union…
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions & Export Controls Update Blog published “EU Imposes new Iron and Steel import restrictions from Russia and denies Russia Most Favoured Nation status,” which can be viewed here.
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions & Export Controls Update Blog published “UK denies Russia access to Most Favoured Nation status and announces the imposition of new import tariffs on hundreds of Russian products,” which can be viewed here.
The European Court of Justice (the “Court”) released its judgement on 8 March 2022 in relation to Case C-213/19 (Commission v United Kingdom), concerning the UK’s undervaluing of imports of textiles and footwear from China and associated failure to fulfil obligations regarding customs control and the recovery of EU own resources, through failing to adopt measures necessary to combat fraud. The full decision can be accessed here. Through this judgement, the Grand Chamber of the…
The European Union (“EU”) has confirmed that it is considering the removal of Russia’s Most Favoured Nation (“MFN”) status at the World Trade Organisation (“WTO”) in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. As a consequence, the EU would be free to increase tariffs or establish quotas on Russian imports. MFN treatment refers to the WTO principle of equal treatment among trade partners — meaning that preferential treatment given to a trade partner by one…