On 19 April 2023, the European Parliament adopted the final text of a new EU Regulation aimed at tackling deforestation and forest degradation (the “Deforestation Regulation”) requiring companies to undertake due diligence into the source of a wide range of commodities, including cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm-oil, rubber, soya and wood, to ensure that they have not been obtained as a result of deforestation. Once in force, obligated will have 18 months to implement the new…
On 31 March 2023, the UK announced that it will join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), joining 11 countries (including Mexico, Japan, Canada and Australia) across the Asia-Pacific region and becoming the first European country to do so. While the UK already has existing bi-lateral trade agreements with 9 of the 11 CPTPP countries, the biggest benefits will arise as other countries join the bloc (with applications to join by countries…
Introduction Post-importation transfer pricing (“TP”) adjustments have always presented great challenge for multinational companies doing business in China due to the lack of formal nationwide mechanism which simultaneously addresses the tax, customs and foreign exchange administration requirements, in order to allow customs valuation adjustment to be made in response to a post-importation TP adjustment. While a TP and customs aligned approach which was introduced in a pilot program in Shenzhen in 2022 allows retroactive TP…
On March 28, the Minister of Finance introduced Budget 2023, aptly titled a “Made-in-Canada Plan”. A key trade-related theme resonates throughout the Budget: futureproofing the Canadian economy to respond to realignment of global trade patterns. Budget 2023 highlights new policy based initiatives and legislative amendments to address: The global race to net-zero economies and “industries of tomorrow”; “Friendshoring” economies to limit dependence on authoritarian regimes for critical goods; Domestic supply chain weaknesses; Forced labour in…
Indonesia as a Target for EU Trade Remedy Measures – What Indonesian Exporting Producers Should Know The European Union (EU) actively uses anti-dumping and anti-subsidy (or countervailing duty) investigations to protect the EU industry. Imports from Indonesia are a prime target for these investigations. Since 2003, imports from Indonesia were targeted in 15 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations, and four of these investigations were initiated in the last three years. As the Indonesian manufacturing industry continues…
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…
The Spanish Customs Authorities (“SCA”) have released new guidelines (available only in Spanish) on provisional customs values and simplified declarations. The aim is to clarify the utilization of simplified declarations foreseen in Article 166 of the UCC due to the high number of queries from operators. The current guidelines supplement previous guidelines on this issue (our tax alert about them can be found here). Through the new guidelines the SCA analyses the proper method to…
Baker McKenzie’s Global Compliance News Blog published “Türkiye: Restructuring of Customs Receivables,” which can be viewed here.
There are already big reforms planned for the UK Trade Remedies Authority (“TRA”) – less than two years after its establishment – and for the overall operation of the UK trade remedies regime. On March 9, the UK Government announced changes to its trade remedies regime to transition to a more complex investigatory regime. Changes include: The TRA taking on responsibility for investigating bilateral safeguard cases as part of free trade agreements; Greater Ministerial powers…
The UK’s trade remedies body, the Trade Remedies Authority (“TRA”) announced on 22 February that it has begun a reconsideration of its recommendation in Case AD0012, concerning imports of certain aluminium extrusions originating in China (here). Notably, this was the TRA’s first anti-dumping investigation in response to an application from UK industry. A reconsideration application is a request for the TRA to review its findings in a concluded investigation. The applicant, a UK producer in Case AD0012, alleges that the TRA erred in its…