Every company and institution has its own individual license and classification requirements when it comes to export compliance, but ultimately it all comes down to learning the laws that apply to you and staying on the right side of them.
Trade chain partners and intermediaries—freight forwarders, customs brokers, trucking companies, airlines, ships, warehouse and storage facilities, consignees, agents, sub-contractors—all pose significant compliance risks to the companies they serve.
Containing that risk is one reason companies look for partners with Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), Partners-in-Protection (PIP), Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) and other government security certifications. And why trade compliance solutions are so essential to ensuring you can legally do business with or allow them contact with your goods.
It’s also why supply chain intermediaries themselves invest in trade compliance solutions—particularly those based in the EU where agents are responsible for export compliance for non-EU purchasers of exported goods.
Continuous screening of trade chain partners
Pressing trade compliance issues raised by the selection of trade chain partners include determining if you can legally do business with existing, proposed or ad hoc partners, and whether you can do business with that partner's various partners.
While some systems are not as effective or efficient as they could be, generating too many false positives and creating significant human resource burdens, others are difficult to learn and use. Some do not adequately integrate with or provide audit trails to other corporate technologies involved in trade compliance mitigation. Others do not provide fully current and comprehensive regulatory content against which to screen. Most importantly however, many do not provide a full range of deployment options that include internet-based, batch and multiple technology integrations and are thereby severely limited for the 24/7 world of logistics.
General Services Administration (GSA) excluded party screening
Suspension and exclusion actions protect government agencies from doing business with individuals, companies or recipients who pose a business risk to the government. Companies and individuals on the General Services Administration (GSA) Excluded Party List (EPL) are excluded, debarred or disqualified from participating in specific government contracts, subcontracts, loans, grants and other assistance programs.
Companies doing business with any federal agency, government contractor or subcontractor need to be additionally concerned with screening suppliers and contractors against the GSA EPL, and ensuring access to these screening results for audit control purposes.
