SECURITY INITIATIVES SIGNAL CHANGE FOR CONTRACT LAW

SECURITY INITIATIVES SIGNAL CHANGE FOR CONTRACT LAW    Attorneys who specialize in customs and international trade law are preparing for changes to legal requirements for contracts and agreements under proposed U.S. government supply chain security initiatives.
   Four key initiatives will warrant change: Customs’ Container Security Initiative and Trade Partnership Against Terrorism; the Transportation Department’s Operation Safe Commerce; the National Infrastructure Security Committee’s work; and pending port and maritime security legislation. There are also legal concerns regarding future ship crew identification requirements.
   “These proposals and the ones which will surely follow will apply to a wide variety of participants in the supply chain,” said Richard K. Bank, an attorney with law firm Thompson Coburn LLP at a C-TPAT-related meeting in Washington Tuesday.
   “The implementation of these programs will require ever-changing technology and business methods and systems which will be developed in house or by global software providers,” he said. “These systems will not only seek to make more efficient the movement of goods, but must dovetail with the requirements of Customs and security officials here and in our various trading partners.”
   Bank said the legal implications of these programs and requirements will be reduced to binding contracts and agreements that will be created and adjudicated under commercial private law.
   “(The cargo security programs) will engender the need to redefine expectations and risks,” Bank said. “Will there be a need for anew and redrafted documents of transport? What will be the new definition of ‘just in time?’ Which party will be responsible of the less than rapid delivery of a container when it is held up for further scrutiny based on its profile or that of another box on the same vessel?”
   “These and many other issues must be addressed by governments and the transportation industry in a cooperative fashion,” he said.