Sebastian Roggeveen

An ADR is a security that trades in the U.S. and in U.S. dollars, but represents claims to shares of a foreign stock. The ADR is created by a bank that purchases foreign stock and then issues receipts of that company in the U.S. for trading on an exchange or over the counter (OTC) market.

Trade regulations are revised continuously, and laws that your business needs to comply with may change each year.

This means that there is never a bad time to go through compliance training, but here are a few critical times that your employees should go through a customized training program.

New Hires. Any new employee who is involved with a process in your business that is related to trade compliance should be exposed to concepts and awareness about the issue. This information can help an employee understand their role in keeping your company compliant, and this training can always also follow the entire department engaged with compliance.

Annual Recertifications. Most businesses have a Code of Business Ethics Conduct. This Code sends a clear signal to vendors and customers that the business takes import laws seriously. Typically, annual reviews of import trade compliance is a great choice to keep compliance at the top of mind and avoid hefty fines or penalties.

Annual Training. Departments that are involved in trade compliance and executive managers should go through annual training to ensure they are updated on changing compliance regulations. Ongoing training is essential in the case of a government audit, and training can be a “mitigating factor” if your business runs into a sticky situation.

Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) is a term where the seller is responsible for the import duties and taxes of the shipment in the country of import. If a company is aware that these charges would be for their account and doesn’t impact on the profitability, then may be the company would opt to use this term.

However, in the majority of B2B shipments, this can result in charges for the seller that would impact on profitability, due to a lot of “unknown” costs that could be applied to the sellers account.

Another issue is that some countries require the buyer to be registered as an importer in the country of import, which restricts the use of this term. For example you cannot ship goods DDP to Russia with DHL.

The Single Administrative Document (SAD) which is also known as a C88 in the UK is a form for declaring import, export, transit and community status declarations with UK Customs.

Cargo Dues Order – abbreviated to read CDO is the document that is passed by a client with Transnet National Port Authority (TNPA). They pay the CDO fees which is as per the tariff set out by TNPA every April. This is basically the exporter or importers contribution to the TNPA for using their facilities for movement of the cargo through it.

Shipping lines will not release their bill of lading to their clients unless a copy of the CDO stamped by TNPA is received. If for some reason the client has not paid the CDO fees to TNPA, then the same is in general invoiced by TNPA to the shipping line involved.