Global Trade and Customs Consulting Services

The World Customs Organization (WCO) Harmonised System (HS) is used by more than 200 countries as a basis for their customs tariffs, rules, regulations and collection of international trade statistics. Ensuring your business’ article catalogue is accurately classified in line with the latest rules is critical. Errors can impact your ability to clear customs and affect your total landed cost.

Our team of experts will make sure that the HS codes for your products are correct and always up to date. We help you reduce the risk of delays or fines due to non-compliant classifications and identify opportunities for tariff reductions and other savings.

To sum up, with our HS Classification services, you can:

• Ensure your master data is compliant
• Keep up with rapid legislative changes
• Minimise duty payment errors and optimise duty liabilities

We help you drive savings by making use of opportunities like Free Trade Agreements, inward/outward processing, duty drawback, recovery of overpaid duties, VAT recovery on exports and bonded warehousing, among others.

By analysing your article registries and supply chain data, we identify specific regimes that could be most beneficial for you. We quantify the savings available and offer recommendations on how to achieve them. We help you implement optimisation strategies and build your in-house capacity to ensure that you benefit from these advantages in the long term.

We will assess the risk of non-compliance with customs and trade regulations and develop and implement recovery plans to address the challenge. We undertake gap analyses to assess the impact of new regulations and the steps required to get ready. We help you engage with government agencies in appeals, voluntary disclosures and help you prepare for audits. We can also provide expertise to fill short or long-term gaps in your compliance management capacity, and we help build your in-house capability to stay on top of risks in the long term.

Our areas of expertise include classification, valuation and origin, export controls and sanctions, customs regimes such as warehousing, inward processing, etc., ESG-related regulations such as Forced Labour, and CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism).

With upcoming legislation changes like CBAM that affect cross-border movement of certain goods, our team will help you stay updated with all the recent developments and guide you through the changes. To know more about CBAM and the steps you need to take to be compliant, click here.

AEO or Authorised Economic Operator is an international WCO standard (SAFE Framework of Standards) to certify secure, compliant and low-risk supply chain operators. Acquiring the AEO status means that the certified entity is legislatively compliant, financially transparent and follows the required security standards, and qualifies the company for customs facilitations that save money, aid cash flow, and streamline procedures.

Maersk’s AEO Guru Service includes support for application to become an AEO/Trusted Trader; support to ensure you maintain your AEO or Trusted Trade status, and preparation for AEO audits. We also provide software support for your AEO needs through market-leading digital compliance tools.

In a globalised post-pandemic world, customs competence and knowledge ensure compliance and security, and can also help drive savings and optimisation. Maersk’s Digital Customs Academy is the first digital platform for customs professionals. The programs are conducted by expert tutors who can guide students through the different courses.

It is powered by Maersk and the UK Institute of Export & International Trade, two global leaders in customs education. The courses are built on standard modules and elements, which can also be reconfigured for a solution that fits your needs. Standard programs are:

• Basic Introduction to Customs Course
• UK Customs Academy Levels 2-5 (including academic accreditation)
• EU Customs Academy Levels 2-3

Click here to visit the Digital Customs Academy and start your course today.

Border Management Consulting supports governments to reform, modernise and transform their customs, trade and border environment in line with international standards and best practices. Our expertise covers key areas, such as:

• Authorised Economic Operator / Trusted Trader
• Risk Management
• Border Management
• Single Window and Digitalisation
• Trade Facilitation

We can deliver transformation projects and deploy our experts to complement government agency resources and manage the day-to-day operations of certain services. For example, our team can conduct the audit and accreditation of companies applying to become authorised economic operators.