This week in Ft. Lauderdale and online, Sobel Network Shipping representatives attended the NCBFAA’s Annual Conference. Sobel is a proud member of the National Custom Brokers and Forwarders Association of America – the leading trade organization representing our industry. NCBFAA interfaces with all of the agencies that our importers and exporters deal with daily, from Customs to the FMC to FDA and others.
Over the course of three days, Sobel’s President Brian Wills was in the room where it was happening and our VP of Operations Kelly Morrison was watching from our headquarters in Rockville Centre, New York. Both licensed brokers, Brian and Kelly were attuned to a few priority issues that we want to make our clients aware of.
Food and Drug Administration News:
- On May 24, 2021, FDA will be shutting down their DUNS number portal. Organizations needing one can still get one for free directly with D&B at their website. Failing this, the FDA Establishment Indictor (FEI) will be accepted in lieu of a DUNS number.
- The FDA code UNK for “Unknown” in the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) will no longer be allowed to use with an ACE data submission. No timetable was provided for the phase-out.
- FDA set an operational work target of 1,400 FSVP inspections for FY 2020 and are looking to further increase that number in FY 2021 to 1,750.
- The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Seafood Pilot is currently operating in its second phase and is scheduled to run from February 1, 2021 through July 31, 2021.
- The AI Seafood Pilot’s results and data will be used to determine if there can be a wider deployment in support of overall import targeting to target high-risk seafood products.
CBP News:
The biggest discussion item is a rulemaking for Part 111, the regulations governing the conduct and management of customs brokers. Whether Sobel Network Shipping is your sole broker or you are working with other licensed customs brokers, understand that CBP regulates all brokers identically and unlike the days of port shopping for a favored classification, any defense that begins with, “My other broker…” will be dimly viewed by the agency.
There are many changes the agency has proposed regarding licensure, responsible supervision and how we manage our offices – and much of that is inside baseball. For our clients, though, the agency is seeking to broaden the reach and demands upon a broker to document and report unlawful or dangerous commercial conduct by an importer from whom they have power of attorney.
The agency’s reason for this is really quite simple and transparent – make customs brokers not just representatives of importers, but whistleblowers for the government. Brokers currently have a fiduciary and legal responsibility to notify importers when they are in error and to make corrections. CBP is looking to deputize customs brokers – something that the NCBFAA strongly disagreed with in their comments back to the agency.
Sobel Network Shipping has always prided itself on communication and transparency with our customers. As our industry works with CBP in their interest to both modernize their relationship with us as well as find new avenues to procure information and intelligence on potential bad actors, we remain steadfastly committed to keeping our clients advised when anything changes in our professional working relationship owing to new, underlying regulations.
