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Tariffs. Customs. Trade Remedies

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Johanna Asplund (UK)

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South Africa: Increases Customs Duty on Peanut Butter Imports

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In brief The South African government has implemented a substantial increase in customs duties on specified peanut butter tariff lines, raising the general rate from 0.99 cents per kilogram to 20% ad valorem. The decision follows an ITAC investigation which concluded that domestic peanut butter producers were experiencing declining production, reduced sales volumes, increased competition from lower-priced imports, and rising operational costs. While duty-free treatment remains available for imports from certain jurisdictions, including the European…

UK: Changes under the Windsor Framework to affect Northern Ireland customs considerations from 30 September 2024

By , and 6 Mins Read

Following the UK’s exit from the EU (“Brexit”), the UK and EU developed the Northern Ireland Protocol (“NI Protocol”) and, subsequently, the Windsor Framework (designed to facilitate smooth trade between Great Britain, i.e. England, Wales and Scotland, and Northern Ireland following Brexit by streamlining the number of checks placed on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, primarily through the introduction of two “lanes” of travel depending on the final destination of the goods…

Sanctions and export controls week: Geopolitical disruption and global sanctions and export controls developments

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For the second week of our Annual Compliance Conference, we discussed key trade compliance issues impacting our clients globally. Specifically, we discussed the trade policy response of the US, EU and UK to ever increasing geopolitical disruption, global strategies for handling sanctions regulators and enforcement, and key global sanctions and export controls developments. Trade policy response to geopolitical disruption – China and beyond – Tuesday 7 May Speakers: Tristan Grimmer (Partner, London), Sylwia Lis (Partner,…

EU to Ban Products made with Forced Labour

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The EU has held political talks on a law that will ban the sale on the EU market of products made with forced labour, as well as the export of such products from the EU. On 22 January 2024, the EU Council and Parliament held negotiations to agree the final text of the regulation, the proposal for which was published by the EU Commission in September 2022. The Committee on International Trade and the Committee on…

EU Regulation introducing Binding Valuation Information Decisions in Customs Legislation has been Adopted

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On 25 January 2024, the EU Commission confirmed and adopted the Delegated Regulation no. 5831/24 (“Regulation”) that incorporates binding valuation information (“BVI”) decisions in customs legislation. Under the new Regulation, operators may apply for a binding BVI decision from the relevant customs authorities in the EU (which would be binding across all Member States of the EU), in order to obtain certainty about the customs value of goods imported into the EU. This move, announced…

Business consequences and recommendations on the tightened import ban on iron and steel imposed by the EU

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The recent amendments to the Russian iron and steel sanctions that came into effect across Europe on 30 September 2023 have had a significant impact across sectors. We previously reported on the business consequences and recommendations on the tightened restrictions in our blog post available here. Although the latest restrictions are still in their early days, it is becoming increasingly clear that cooperation between sanctions and customs teams within businesses is crucial to ensure that…

The WCO Symposium on E-Commerce and Customs Valuation Highlights Key Challenges

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On 15 February 2023, the World Customs Organization (“WCO”) hosted a Symposium on E-Commerce and Customs Valuation. Several key challenges were identified: 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 featured substantive presentations on the challenges faced by national Customs Authorities (including the European Commission, the CBP and Indian Customs) with input from the private sector in…

The EU Releases Draft Act to Introduce Binding Valuation Decisions

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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…

EU and UK agree a ‘definitive’ solution to resolve Brexit difficulties in Northern Ireland

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The United Kingdom has agreed with the European Union a new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland which seeks to significantly reduce the number of checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The Windsor Framework would create two ‘lanes’ for goods which are arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain: Some product bans currently in place for goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain (for example on chilled sausages) will also be removed,…

Here’s the latest – all excise duty transactions in the EU moved to a fully electronic system on 13 February 2023[1]

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In line with what we previously reported[1] regarding the expanded obligation to maintain electronic registers, a series of new rules were rolled out on 13 February 2023 which will make the taxation of alcohol, tobacco and energy products fully paperless across the EU. They are part of a wider expansion of the common excise duty provisions in the EU. The aim of this new standardised electronic system is to alleviate some of the rigorous procedures…