Flash Strike Closes NY/NJ Ports
April 16, 2015OFAC Designations High;light Need For Compliance Vigilance
April 16, 2015Effective February 28, 2016, importers will only be permitted to file electronic entries and associated entry summaries in ACE and. After that date, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will no longer permit filing in the Automated Commercial System (ACS.)
Importers who have not done so already must prepare for the imminent transition to ACE as the primary system through which the trade community will report imports and exports and the government will determine admissibility, and for the corresponding decommission of legacy systems by the end of 2016.
ACE will automate and enhance interaction between the trade, CBP, and Partner Government Agencies (PGA) during the cargo import and export process, significantly increasing efficiency and reducing costs compared to the manual, paper-based interactions in place to-date. While the trade overwhelmingly supports the creation of a single window to the federal government for imports and exports, concerns abound that testing has been insufficient to ensure the system will be fully capable at the deadline. For example, electronic data for the following agencies must also be filed in ACE beginning on February 28, 2016:
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
- Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for Lacey Act transactions
Very little testing has been done on these interfaces to date to ensure the smooth disposition of entries when they go live at the deadline.