U.S. Customs delays change to “shipper” definition

U.S. Customs delays change to “shipper” definition

U.S. Customs delays change to “shipper” definition

Following complaints made by ocean carriers, the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection has agreed to postpone its proposed change of the definition of a shipper in regulations requiring the advanced submission of cargo data under the Trade Act of 2002.
   “Customs and Border Protection will allow for the current definition of ‘shipper’ as outlined in the 24-hour final rule until further notice,” the agency said in a statement.
   It had earlier intended to enforce, effective March 4, a ruling that carriers must submit information on shippers, defined as “the owner or exporter” of the cargo, via the Sea Automated Manifest System.
   This definition of “shipper” deviated from the previous one used in the 24-hour rule on advanced cargo transmission, for which the shipper could be an exporter or an intermediary.
   U.S. Customs said the purpose for this delay in its definition ruling is to allow the agency “time to review a petition submitted by trade representatives challenging the definition of shipper.”
   Last summer, the Washington-based ocean carrier group World Shipping Council expressed concerns over the proposed rule requiring “the identity of the actual shipper (the owner and exporter) of the cargo from the foreign country.”
   “The proposed definition of ‘shipper’ in many cases would not be the shipper in any currently recognized commercial or legal sense, and it would in many cases be an entity with which the ocean carrier has no contractual relationship and about which the ocean carrier has no direct information,” the World Shipping Council said.
   The carrier group asked Customs to delete the amended definition of “shipper,” or “more appropriately … to place the information-reporting requirements for ‘actual shipper’ information on the parties to the underlying import transaction, not the carrier, which is a party only to the transportation contract.”
   U.S. Customs said it “will continue to make risk determinations on the information provided in the shipper field as we do today.” Information that is not useful in assessing risk will “invite closer scrutiny and increase the likelihood that the shipment will be examined,” the agency warned.
   The agency has expressed dissatisfaction about the quality of the information it receives on shippers for some time. “Currently, the information Customs and Border Protection receives about the shipper is not helpful in making risk determinations,” it said in a statement in early February. “For example, identifying the shipper as a carrier, bank or importer does not provide Customs and Border Protection with useful information.”