Common Questions

Question:Can the membership provide insight or examples on how to influence senior management on customs compliance.  How do you get a senior person to do what needs to be done.  What would be the best approach?

Can the membership please comment on where ownership of the various global security programs reside within their respective organizations, some examples are US C-TPAT, Canada PIP, various AEOs, and accompanying early (pre-departure, pre-export, pre-arrival) security data programs.  

As an importer, my company requires our vendors do toy testing on behalf of our company and that the samples tested are from our production line. This however has become a problem with larger toy manufacturers.  They do internal testing and do not feel it is necessary to test on behalf of the importer.  How […]

Need some explanation to the Buy America Act…   We are manufacturers of construction equipment. In order to meet regulation and qualify for Buy America, we must meet the rules that our product contains 50% or more U.S. material content, measure in cost of components assembled into the unit. What I have failed to read […]

Question: We were notified by one of the steamship lines that we could no longershow the company name (buyer’s name)  C/O the customer that the goodswill be delivered to on ocean import shipments.  Can anyone provideinsight?  Is it something that will likely be done by all carriers orperhaps a new Customs requirement?  We show the […]

Question: Can you enquire whether most of the group, especially retail companies, requires a certain standard for master carton specs and size for their international shipments?  If they do, can they share that standard?

Question: Do any of the members know how many Import and Export laws and regulations have been added / updated since 2001 vs the  10-20 years prior? Your help will be greatly appreciated!

Question: Can anyone share generic business rules on how they evaluate customs brokers in terms of compliance and service in India, UK and China?  

Question:   Does anyone have a mission statement for a trade compliance group that they wouldn’t mind sharing?  

Questions: One of our buying agents has asked the manager of our company’s in-house buying dept. to change his commission from 6% to 9%.  He wants to send us a check several times a year for this additional 3% to help pay for advertising the garments we source through his company.   I could not […]

Question: We have been asked to provide some examples to the executive team of companies being penalized from import/export noncompliance.   It is quite easy to find US export violations, complete with the company name,and the penalties. (i.e.http://efoia.bis.doc.gov/exportcontrolviolations/tocexportviolations.htm) BUT, I have had no luck finding published cases where there have been penalties for import violations. […]

Question:In order for our organization to receive discounts related to Healthcare insurance, we must be established as a “small company” employing 50 or less employees. So, one of our offices that is permitted to Conduct Customs Business under our current license and permit number has now been change to an LLC, with a different name,different […]