News

Under their changes to import conditions and documentary requirements for wooden manufactured articles, DAWR has issued clarification on the definition of export statements, i.e. date of treatment and date of export match. From 11 September 2017 consignments of manufactured wooden articles treated offshore by heat, fumigation or irradiation methods will be required to be exported […]

Eight people have been arrested under operation Astatine, a joint investigation between the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the NSW Police Force. They are concerned about corrupt networks being built within the Australian Border Force (ABF) financed by drug money. Those arrested include figures connected to the Jomaa crime syndicate, both in NSW and on […]

On August 3rd the Federal Court convicted Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) of criminal cartel conduct and ordered it to pay a fine of $25 million – the second-highest imposed in ACCC history. The judgment also marks the first successful prosecution under the criminal cartel provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act […]

The department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) and Australian Border Force (ABF)  have published Notice 2017/16 – containing advice to industry and owners/importers on the definition of ‘Owner’ contained in the Customs Act 1901. The Notice also outlines the broad compliance approach for the purposes of duty demands and revenue recovery under section 165 […]

It is just two years since the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (Customs) and the Department of Immigration were merged into the current Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) which included the Australian Border Force (ABF) – with the ABF essentially conducting the former Customs role within the DIBP. The ABF is a […]

Under most Commonwealth laws, financial penalties are generally expressed in terms of ‘penalty units’ instead of dollar figures. As an example, a maximum fine would generally be expressed as ‘10 penalty units’ as opposed to a dollar value of $2,100.00. On 1 July 2017, the value of one Commonwealth penalty unit increased from $180.00 to […]

As Australian Balance of Trade figures were released this week, the main media attention has been on the upswing in exports of coal and LNG. But there were other noteworthy contributors to the positive result. Rural goods also enjoyed stronger performance, up 3% to $4.2 billion (with the bulk of the lift coming from cereal […]

Australian businesses waiting on deliveries by FedEx’s TNT Express say they have been left in limbo after the company was “significantly affected” by a worldwide cyber-attack. In a statement, FedEx said TNT’s operations and communications systems had been disrupted, and the financial impact “could be material”.[1] Stuck in the middle of the chain are small […]

            Cybersecurity experts say that this week’s major ransomware attack uses a variant of the Petya or GoldenEye ransomware and is currently claiming victims across the world. It quickly spread across Ukraine, Russia, England and India.             On Wednesday, the world’s biggest shipping company Maersk, which handles one out of seven containers shipped globally, said […]

Back on 20 May 2017 we reported on the House of Representatives process for the GST Low Value Goods Bill. Since then the Bill, with a proposed amendment put by the Opposition, was debated and defeated in its Second Reading. It was then passed on its Third Reading and sent to the Senate for its […]