Broker Self-Assessment firms revealed

Broker Self-Assessment firms revealed    Expeditors International and A.N. Deringer Inc. are two of four brokerage firms selected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to participate in a Broker Self-Assessment pilot program, AmericanShipper.com has learned.
   The agency announced July 29 the selection of four companies out of 26 applicants to test whether a trusted compliance program should be instituted on a voluntary basis for customs brokers. CBP will not disclose the names of companies involved for privacy reasons. Earlier this month, OHL in Brentwood, Tenn., announced its Global Freight Management unit was chosen for the year-long partnership program.
   St. Albans, Vt., logistics and customs service provider A.N. Deringer will also self-police compliance with customs regulations, said Robert DeCamp, director of regulatory affairs and consulting. An official at Expeditors, one of the nation's largest international freight forwarders, also confirmed that the Seattle company was accepted into the Broker Self-Assessment (BSA) program.
   CBP has also picked an unknown small broker, in addition to the two medium and one large-size brokers, to represent various segments of the industry during the evaluation.
   The BSA, modeled on the seven-year-old Importer Self-Assessment program, is designed to promote high compliance levels with Customs laws and regulations by letting trusted brokers self-report compliance violations so that CBP specialists can devote limited resources to focus on higher-risk companies and enforcement issues.
   Under the program, CBP will review whether the brokers are able to update and improve internal controls, perform periodic testing of those controls and disclose to CBP deficiencies discovered through the testing. ' Eric Kulisch