Search for:

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), Esmee Kooke (Associate, Amsterdam)

In this webinar, our speakers discussed the reform of the Union Customs Code (“UCC”) and its main pillars: the EU Customs Authorities & EU Customs Data Hub, the Trust & Check Trader status, and the reform of the current customs e-commerce regime.

The panel set the scene by introducing why the reform has been proposed, diving into the need of modernization of the UCC due to the rise of e-commerce. This reform also encourages EU to be more in control of its trade policy, by requesting more data from traders to tackle customs tax fraud, illicit trade and set high standards on products (including EU Forced Labour, Deforestation, and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism obligations). The future EU Customs Union will therefore be based on a solid partnership between the EU Customs Authority and traders. Traders should already start to prepare for the next challenges to come and identify opportunities and risks for their business.

The speakers discussed EU Customs Authorities, the EU Customs Data Hub and the Trust & Check Trader status into detail. Moreover, the key aspects of the new approach to e-commerce were discussed, highlighting the abolishment of the customs duty relief for low value consignments, the new Simplified Tariff Treatment and the deemed importer phenomenon.

The session concluded with the proposed timeline of the reform and a discussion following questions from the audience.

You can access the webinar recording here.

EMEA customs: what’s trending?
Wednesday 15 May

SPEAKERS: Jenny Revis (Partner, London), Virusha Subban (Partner, Johannesburg), Laya Aoun-Hani (Counsel, Dubai), Carolin Insel (Senior Associate, Dusseldorf), Kelvin Hong (Senior Associate, London), Albert Arenas (Associate, Barcelona)

In this webinar, our speakers discussed key customs developments, key trends and case law in the EU, UK, Africa and Middle East.

The panel started the session by addressing the rise of ESG developments in the EU, which are expected to have an impact on customs processes, including EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), forced labour compliance obligations, and local Plastic Packaging Tax regulations. The panel then touched on key EU customs valuation developments, such as the highly anticipated Binding Valuation Information (BVI), Commission’s new guidance on UC authorisation (Article 73) and learnings from EU’s 2024 version of the Customs Valuation Compendium.

The panel then discussed key trends and developments in the UK, including HMRC’s new policy on customs valuation in the context of related party transactions and the possible solutions to consider. Our speakers also discussed the ongoing ratification of Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (“CPTPP”) Free Trade Agreement. The panel covered recent notable case law on customs procedures in the UK and anticipated UK customs modernisation initiatives.

The Africa portion of our session discussed key developments in the region such as Intra-Africa Trade, regional value chains, economic integration and customs modernisation processes. A special focus was given to the recent enforcement action and penalties in South Africa and the local authority’s guidance expanding on the use of data with the aim of streamlining and modernising customs procedures. The panel then provided updates on the African Continental Free Trade Area (“AdCFTA”) and discussed challenges, opportunities and next steps.

Our panel finally focused on the Middle East region. Dubai was discussed as a rapidly developing hub and popular distribution location. The panel shared key customs developments and trends in the region including the use of Free Trade Zones. 

You can access the webinar recording here.

Customs duty mitigation: how to drive significant financial savings
Thursday 16 May

SPEAKERS: Jessica Mutton (Of Counsel, London), Lionel van Reet (Partner, Brussels), Chandri Navarro (Senior Counsel, Washington D.C.), Adriana Ibarra-Fernandez (Partner, Mexico City) and Alexandra Lambert (Associate, London)

In a world where companies are faced with rising global costs and geopolitical uncertainty and importers have faced supply chain disruptions to higher tariffs and other trade barriers, many companies are looking to re-evaluate their supply chains to assess whether there are alternative options for sourcing products and shipping goods which could minimise tariff burdens and therefore costs.

Against this backdrop, our speakers discussed duty savings options available to companies, including: origin and duty preference programs, including key US and Mexican duty savings programs; and different customs processes.

The panel kicked off the session with an explanation of origin and how this can help drive financial savings, including the process for obtaining a certificate of origin and the key components of origin analysis. The panel then explained other different types of duty preference programmes, as well as the cost considerations and opportunities of using such programmes.

FTAs, inward and outward processing, bonded warehouses, specific use, and transit were discussed as examples of customs procedures which allow businesses to suspend or reduce duties payable on imported goods.

In the second part of the session, our panel walked through two helpful case studies to bring to life the methods of customs duty mitigation discussed in the first part of the session and to illustrate the importance of considering such methods in global supply chains in order to drive financial savings. The panel gave practical tips for using duty preference programmes or customs procedures and highlighted some of the common pitfalls and challenges for businesses to be mindful of when looking to drive financial savings.  

You can access the webinar recording here.

The Annual Compliance Conference is held virtually across five weeks from 29 April – 6 June.  Every year it attracts over 4,000 in-house senior legal and compliance professionals from across the world. With a speaker faculty from all regions of our global team, we will be delivering our cutting-edge insights and guidance virtually on key global compliance, investigations and ethics trends. 

To register for the other sessions and access the recordings, click here.

Author

Nicole Looks is a partner within the Amsterdam Tax Practice with more than 25 years of experience. She focuses on advising national and international companies in all value added tax and customs related matters. JUVE Handbook on Commercial Law Firms, International Tax Review, Chambers & Partners, Legal 500 and Handelsblatt in cooperation with Best Lawyers recommend her as leading individual in the area of Indirect Taxes since many years and praise her as " "very knowledgeable about German customs tax" and as “very good and practice-oriented“. Nicole heads the European Customs Practice.

Author

Thomas Kukanza joined Baker McKenzie as a senior trade advisor in the Tax Practice Group in April 2022. He has over 10 years of experience in customs and international trade and in the implementation of duty optimization programs. Thomas is a guest lecturer at the University of Antwerp and holds a US customs broker licence.

Author

Sylvain Guelton is a senior associate in the Tax Practice Group in the Brussels office. He joined Baker McKenzie in 2022. He was previously a senior manager at PwC Belgium for six years and a lawyer in a French law firm based in Paris and Brussels.

Author

Esmee Kooke is a Junior Associate within the Amsterdam Indirect Tax team. She joined the Firm in September 2023.

Author

Jennifer Revis is a partner in Baker McKenzie's London office and co-leads our EMEA Customs Team.
Jennifer focuses her practice on the public regulation of international trade, particularly in a wide range of customs compliance issues. She regularly advises clients on import matters, including customs valuation, rules of origin, and classification. She has worked with clients designing and implementing their compliance programs, policies, procedures and risk assessments, and assisting them in customs audits. She has significant experience in managing global customs projects and disputes, particularly in the area of customs valuation (transfer pricing; assists; royalties). Jennifer also advises on FTAs and trade remedies matters.
Jennifer has been consistently recognised as a "Leading Individual" for Customs & Excise and “Next Generation Partner” for Trade, WTO Anti-Dumping And Customs. Clients describe her as "an outstanding customs lawyer and litigator with fantastic experience. She is also easy to work with and leads her team with aplomb", "without a doubt, one of the best customs lawyers in the business (…) with an exceptionally deep knowledge of customs valuation concepts, as well as considerable experience applying those concepts in a variety of jurisdictions."
Jennifer has been on secondment to the UK customs authorities (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) in their tax and excise litigation department and to the Firm's European Law Centre in Brussels.

Author

Virusha is a partner and head of Tax in Baker McKenzie's Tax Practice Group in Johannesburg. She has over 20 years' experience in tax matters relating to customs, excise and international trade.

Author

Laya Aoun-Hani is a counsel and senior member of the EMEA Baker McKenzie International Commercial & Trade Practice Group. With over 18 years of experience in the Middle East, Laya regularly advises multinational clients from different industries on regulatory matters, commercial transactions, multijurisdictional distribution and agency arrangements and restructurings, commercial disputes settlements, competition law, trade compliance, export controls, trade sanctions and customs matters. She is the Middle East co-lead for the Baker McKenzie Consumer Goods and Retail and the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry Groups. Laya has also extensive experience in the Telecommunications sector.
Laya trained at one of the largest law firms in Lebanon and one of the largest international law firms in London before she joined Baker McKenzie in Dubai in 2013. She was a lecturer and coordinator of a Business Law course for five years at the Faculty of Business at Antonine University in Lebanon. Laya is currently a lecturer in the continuous Legal Professional Development Program at the Dubai Legal Affairs Department and a regular speaker at Mecomed

Author

Carolin Insel is a Senior Associate in Baker McKenzie, Dusseldorf office.

Author

Kelvin Hong is a Senior Associate in Baker McKenzie, London office.

Author

Albert Arenas is an Associate in Baker McKenzie, Barcelona office.

Author

Jessica Kathryn Mutton's practice focuses on international trade, encompassing: sanctions and export controls; customs; anti-bribery and corruption; and tax evasion. She joined Baker McKenzie from another global law firm in 2015. She studied and worked in both London and Paris, and has knowledge of both the English common law and French civil law systems. Jessica is the lead associate covering Brexit-related developments, analysing how they will affect the UK's trading position generally and clients' businesses specifically. She has helped clients to conduct assessments of how Brexit will impact their businesses and assisted in developing tailored Brexit Jessica conducts training and presents at various seminars, webinars, and conferences on the complexities of Brexit, as well as on international trade matters more generally. She is recommended by Legal 500 for her Customs and Brexit work.

Author

Lionel joined Baker McKenzie as customs lead in February 2022. He has over 23 years of experience in the field of customs, international trade, excises and energy levy. Lionel is lecturer at the UIA (Antwerp) and ULG (Liege). He is in charge of the customs, excises and international trade course at the Solvay Tax MBA.
In 2023, Lionel was appointed by the Global ICC board as Chair of the ICC Global Customs Valuation Working Group.
Lionel is also chairing the Indirect Taxes subcommitee of AMCHAM BE.
Lionel's Indirect Tax practice team has been recognized as Tier 1 Indirect Tax Team in Belgium by ITR World Tax.

Author

Chandri Navarro is Counsel in the Firm's International Commercial & Trade Practice Group, based in Washington DC. Chandri has extensive experience advising companies, multinationals, trade associations and governments on customs and trade law and policy, trade compliance matters, free trade negotiations, litigation and legislation. Chandri helps clients resolve trade issues before the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of the US Trade Representative, Department of Commerce (DOC), US Congress and the Court of International Trade.

Author

Adriana has over twenty years of experience in customs and foreign trade matters. She joined Baker McKenzie in 2001, became National Partner in 2005 and a Principal in 2018. She has prior experience working as legal director of Rules of Origin, Customs Procedures and Safeguards in the Mexican Ministry of Economy where she participated in the negotiation of several free trade agreements (FTAs) and in the first dispute settlement resolution cases initiated by Mexico against the US under the NAFTA. Adriana has been ranked a leading practitioner by Chambers and Partners at Chambers Global and Chambers Latin America as well as Legal 500 for ten consecutive years. She was an associate in our Guadalajara and Washington, D.C. offices and currently Heads the Firm’s North America International Commercial Practice Group in Mexico City.

Author

Alexandra is an associate in the London Competition, Trade and Foreign Investment practice. Her focus is on international trade, particularly in customs compliance issues. Alexandra advises clients on import matters, including customs valuation and rules of origin. She has worked with clients on customs investigations and valuation disputes.