Census may banish exporter from AES

Census may banish exporter from AES A company is in danger of losing its privilege to electronically file export documents and may face further scrutiny for continued refusal to address repeated errors with its reporting, according to a Census Bureau regulator.
   The sanction would be the first taken against an exporter since the Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division began an informed compliance review program earlier this year to help guide shippers on how to properly file export declarations though the Automated Export System. Census uses the data to compile the nation’s trade statistics.
   Census staff has visited 46 companies since June, most of which file documents late, use the wrong export classification number, don’t follow the special reporting requirements of post-departure filing or make other filing mistakes, Jerry Greenwell, chief of the regulations, outreach and education branch, said earlier this month at the annual conference of the Pacific Coast Council of Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Associations.
   “Within five minutes we knew what the problem was: They didn’t know what they were doing,” Greenwell said.
   Shippers, for example, are required to file their export documents before departure, but some companies wait until after the carrier leaves because they want to make sure their shipment got on a particular vessel or aircraft, he added. During the on-site audits, Census staff will educate shippers how to tighten their internal controls by sharing best practices gleaned from interviews with companies with high compliance levels.
   Compliant companies tend to have good software that helps cut down on the number of human errors, generate an export checklist of things to do to meet regulatory requirements, verify commodity classification, have good training manuals and mentoring programs, and frequently update reference materials, Greenwell said.
   The effort appears to be paying off. He said late filing of export shipments dropped to 1.6 percent in August from 2.9 percent in January of this year.
   Greenwell reiterated previous warnings by Foreign Trade Division officials that the agency will consider as a last resort notifying other enforcement agencies to check out an incorrigible company’s compliance with other trade regulations. Census currently cannot enforce its own regulations, and the referral is considered a way to put pressure on companies to properly enter data in AES.
   Census has yet to refer any companies to Customs and Border Protection or the Commerce Department’s Office of Export Enforcement, but the firm on the verge of losing its AES privileges could be the first because of its cavalier attitude towards excessive late filing of the shippers’ export declaration (SED), Greenwell said.
   An exporter that loses its right to use AES can still get a freight forwarder or service provider to file on its behalf, or use a paper SED.
   A proposed regulation to mandate filing through AES has been stalled by disagreements between Census and the Department of Homeland Security.
   Census recently compiled an AES Compliance Best Practices Manual. It can be viewed at www.census.gov/foreign-trade/aes/documentlibrary/bp/aes_bestpractices.html.