Baker McKenzie’s Global Customs Practice invites you to join us for a follow up webinar on “Trump and Tariffs: Section 232 Tariff Announcement, Reciprocal & Retaliatory Tariffs and More”This one-hour webinar will take place Thursday, 20 February 2025 at 10:00 CST / 11:00 EST / 17:00 CET.On February 10th President Trump announced that 25% tariffs will be imposed on all steel and aluminum products imported into the US from all countries, including Canada, Mexico, the EU and UK,…
As reported in our earlier blog here, on Monday 10 February 2025, President Trump announced that 25% tariffs will be imposed on all steel and aluminum products imported into the United States (“US”), including from the EU and the UK which were previously subject to exclusions. These tariffs are due to come into effect on 12 March 2025. The key question now is how other jurisdictions such as the EU and the UK will retaliate. …
On 12 December 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered a judgment in the case C‑781/23, which has implications for businesses importing goods under temporary admission. The case arose from a request for a preliminary ruling from the Högsta förvaltningsdomstolen (Supreme Administrative Court, Sweden) and involved Malmö Motorrenovering AB and Allmänna ombudet hos Tullverket. Background of the Case The central issue in this case was the interpretation of Article 251 of the Union Customs Code (UCC).…
On 15 December 2024, the United Kingdom (UK) joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The UK has joined the 11 existing members of the CPTPP – Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, and Peru – becoming the first non-founding member of the CPTPP and also the first European country to join the bloc. The CPTPP is a trade agreement, spanning five continents and covering almost 600 million…
On 12 December, the EU Forced Labour Regulation (“Regulation”) was published in the EU Official Journal. The publication is following the EU Council’s approval of the Regulation on 19 November 2024. The text of the Regulation was approved by qualified majority with 25 EU Member States voting in favour and 2 EU Member States abstaining from voting. The Regulation was signed by the President of the European Parliament and the President of the EU Council…
For the third week, we continued our Annual Compliance Conference with key customs developments impacting on businesses today. Specifically, we discussed the reform of the Union Customs Code in the EU, key trending customs developments in EMEA, and different methods of driving significant financial savings in global supply chains. EU customs reform: biggest overhaul since 1968 Tuesday 14 May SPEAKERS: Nicole Looks (Partner, Amsterdam), Thomas Kukanza (Senior Trade Advisor, Brussels), Sylvain Guelton (Senior Associate, Brussels),…
On 15 November 2023, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (“EPPO”) uncovered a EUR 200M customs and VAT fraud scheme. This is yet another case of the EPPO, launched in 1 June 2021, as the first new supra-national prosecution authority in the EU. The EPPO has the power to investigate, prosecute and bring to judgment crimes against the EU budget, such as fraud, corruption or serious cross border fraud. This can also include cases on circumvention of anti-dumping…
Next to the CBAM implementing regulation adopted by the European Commission on 17 August 2023 regarding the reporting rules applicable during the transitional phase of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) (please find a previous alert by our team here), the European Commission released a set of new CBAM documents in October. These are in chronological order: In addition, note that the national authority designation process still is inconclusive for a number of Member States,…
The German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) issued new transfer pricing (“TP”) guidance on June 6, 2023 with customs implications. Last year, Germany’s highest tax court issued its decision in the Hamamatsu case, ruling that both upward and downward lump sum retroactive transfer pricing adjustments, which occur after the decisive moment for customs valuation purposes, have no relevance for the customs value which shall only reflect the “real economic value” at the time of importation…
In our blog post “The Hamamatsu TP/customs valuation case comes to a surprising conclusion” we summarized the final judgment of the German Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof; “BFH”) in the “Hamamatsu” case. The BFH had ruled that taxpayers cannot claim refund of import duties in case of lump-sum TP adjustments applied at the end of the fiscal year that result in a subsequent lump-sum decrease in resale prices and thus in an intercompany credit note for…