COAC Seeks CBP Clarification in Use of Audits on CTPAT Trade Compliance Members

CBP should work with the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee to “clarify the types of audits or reviews to which trusted trader partners may be subject regarding compliance, including forced labor,” the COAC Trusted Trader Working Group said in a recommendation that was approved during the Dec. 16 COAC meeting. Working group co-chair Alexandra Latham said CBP last month began Risk Analysis & Survey Assessments (RASAs) around forced labor (see 2012020046).

Among those that received the RASAs were Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Trade Compliance Program members, said Latham, who is director of Customs Compliance for Costco Wholesale Corporation. “While the CTPAT Trade Compliance Program recognizes that members should not be subject to focused assessments,” less clear are the benefits to members when it comes to RASAs or quick response audits, which are more frequently used by the agency, the working group said.

One of the most attractive benefits for CTPAT Trade Compliance and often “the impetus to join the program has been the exemption from the focused assessment audit pool,” Latham said. The recent use of the RASAs “presents an opportunity for discussion, really a reevaluation of what audits trusted traders should be subject to,” she said. The working group said clarification “would help trusted traders better set expectations as to how their partnership status may or may not impact CBP audits or reviews to detect prohibited, illegal importations, or just for information collection and program analysis purposes.”

The working group also asked to be involved in developing the forced labor component of the CTPAT Trade Compliance. The COAC should be involved if CBP goes ahead with that piece before proposed regulations are issued, it said. CBP and COAC should work together to “draft the Forced Labor criteria based on certain critical assumptions that build in flexibility, enabling CBP to modify the criteria once it is clear whether those assumptions accurately reflect the final legal and regulatory requirements,” it said. A proposal on forced labor regulations is expected to be out soon (see 2012170053).

The COAC also approved a recommendation from the In-Bond Working Group. The group's recommendation asked CBP to update “the in-bond authorization date in ACE to reflect the actual physical arrival of the conveyance at the first port of arrival.” The issue is that in-bonds are frequently done prior to arrival of a vessel, COAC member J.D. Gonzalez, a Laredo, Texas, customs broker, said. It can sometimes take up to four weeks before the vessel reaches the first port, “so we want to make sure the date actually reflects because a lot of times there's a lot of lost time in there and there is a duty calculation” involved, he said. There's broad interest to “make sure there's alignment between the vessel's arrival date and the actual [immediate transport] date to make sure the correct processes are applied,” said Michael Young, a COAC member and vice president of business process and system services at OOCL.