Taiwan’s customs authority recently issued guidance about determining dutiable value “stemming from a one-time transfer pricing adjustment,” according to a Jan. 21 post from KPMG. The change, which took effect at the beginning of the 2020 fiscal year, allows certain companies to make a one-time transfer pricing adjustment when conducting transactions with “related parties.” Taiwan released guidance on assessing the one-time transfer pricing adjustment to determine the dutiable value to “assist companies that have imported goods from related parties” and would like to apply the adjustment, KPMG said.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the new NAFTA, though it wasn't by quite as wide a margin as in the House, where more than 95 percent of votes were for the trade pact. The vote, which happened just before the reading of the impeachment articles against President Donald Trump on Jan. 16, was 89-10, with only one Republican voting no. Most of the Democrats who voted no did so because the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement doesn't address climate change.
Egypt plans to increase transit toll rates along the Suez Canal for dry bulk vessels and liquefied petroleum gas carriers by 5 percent, according to a Jan. 9 report from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The new rates, announced Jan. 4, will not impact tolls for other types of shipping, including container vessels, tankers carrying oil and oil products, liquefied natural gas carriers, car carriers and “general cargo” vessels. The changes were made by the Suez Canal Authority after “careful analysis of developments in competitor routes,” studies on the developing maritime transport market and the “global trade outlook,” the report said. The rates reflect the agency’s desire to “maintain traffic growth momentum at a challenging time for global shipping.”
The Commerce Department is amending the Export Administration Regulations to control exports of software designed to “automate the analysis of geospatial imagery,” Commerce said in an interim final rule. The software will be controlled under the Export Control Classification Number 0Y521 series -- a temporary holding classification that lasts for one year from the day the final rule is published. Although the agency believes it is in the U.S.’s national security interest to “immediately” control this software, Commerce is seeking comments on the interim final rule. Comments are due March 6.
BOSTON -- If the Commerce Department follows through on plans to expand the limits of the Export Administration Regulations to further control foreign shipments to Huawei, it will have a “dramatic” impact on international supply chains, said Kevin Wolf, a trade lawyer with Akin Gump and Commerce’s former assistant secretary for export administration. The measures, which Commerce confirmed it was considering earlier this month (see 1912100033), include expanding the Direct Product Rule and broadening the de minimis rule to make more foreign-made goods subject to the EAR.
The growing complexity of international trade and the increasing use of front companies have made it more difficult to identify end-users and more challenging for enforcement authorities to prosecute illegal exports, according to a December report by The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In response, the European Union, and other multistate export regimes, should push for more transparency in penalties for export violations, create a forum for information sharing on national enforcement measures and improve reporting on those measures, the report said. The EU should also adopt “clearer” language on complex export concepts and make “detection, investigation and prosecution” a “key focus” of its industry outreach efforts.
Apple was fined about $465,000 for violations of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions Regulations after it hosted, sold and “facilitated the transfer” of software applications and content belonging to a sanctioned company, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a Nov. 25 notice. Apple allegedly dealt in “the property and interests” of SIS d.o.o., a Slovenian software company added to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals List in 2015.
As CBP prepares to launch its electronic export manifest system, the agency should increase collaboration with stakeholders, provide clear guidelines for regulators and eliminate redundant data requirements, the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s Export Modernization Working Group said in proposed recommendations. The recommendations were released this month ahead of COAC’s Dec. 4 public meeting.
Easing tariffs on U.S. pork exports to China would significantly help both the U.S. agricultural economy and the U.S.’s trade deficit with China, the National Pork Producers Council said in a Nov. 26 press release. An analysis by the NPPC and Iowa State University shows U.S. pork sales would generate more than $24 billion in sales over the next 10 years if tariffs on imports to China were eliminated. “Were it not for China’s tariffs that are severely limiting access to American goods and other restrictions, including customs clearance delays, U.S. pork could be an economic powerhouse, creating thousands of new jobs, expanding sales and dramatically slashing our nation’s trade deficit,” Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes said in a statement.
The former CEO of a Brazilian petrochemical company was charged with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for his role in a money-laundering and bribery scheme, the Justice Department said Nov. 20. Jose Carlos Grubisich, the CEO of Braskem and an official of its parent company, Odebrecht, bribed Brazilian government officials and political parties in violation of the FCPA’s anti-bribery and books and records provision, the agency said.