U.S. Customs and Border Protection had earlier issued a CSMS message announcing that as a result of issues identified during ACE outages on February 9, 2012, CBP needed to take the ACE system down for an emergency maintenance period of up to 2 hours starting the afternoon of February 10, 2012 at 3:00 pm EST, with expected completion by 5:00 pm EST. CBP has now issued a second CSMS message #12-000043 (here) stating that the ACE Production System is again available to ACE Portal users and EDI filers.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the following user guides on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE):
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of February 10, 2012, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. These messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov.
In its February 8, 2012 Customs Bulletin (Volume 46, No. 7), U.S. Customs and Border Protection published the draft agenda for the forty-ninth session of the Harmonized System (HS) Committee of the World Customs Organization, which will meet in Brussels, Belgium from March 13 - 23, 2012.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is requesting comments by April 9, 2012 on an existing information collection on Bonded Warehouse Proprietor's Submission (CBP Form 300). CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection with no change to the burden hours or to CBP Form 300.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have issued the following news releases related to commercial trade and related issues:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection states that a number of problems have recently been reported involving ABI QP inbond entries for ACE Truck Manifest shipments. CBP states the most reliable method for processing ABI QP inbonds -- whether the ACE truck manifest is filed in the ACE Portal or by EDI -- is for the carrier to report the shipment as a regular (PAPS) shipment with bill of lading details (shipper, consignee, quantity, description, etc), and allow the CBP systems to attach the ABI QP inbond to the ACE Truck shipment.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has advised C-TPAT partners that effective March 1, 2012, the current International Organization for Standardization mechanical seal standard (ISO/PAS 17712) will be replaced with a new ISO standard -- ISO 17712:2010. CBP states companies are not expected to discard seals currently in stock. However, after companies have exhausted their current stock of high security seals, the agency recommends that companies purchase seals which are compliant with the new ISO standard.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is announcing that it will provide updates on the programming needed for existing and new ACE functionality at a Software Developer Technical Seminar that will be part of a National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) meeting to be held on March 6-8, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. CBP states that the seminar will target ocean and rail software developers and ABI participants.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its "Bonded Warehouse Manual for Customs and Border Protection Officers and Bonded Warehouse Proprietors," which it states is a comprehensive guide for understanding bonded warehouse operations in the United States. The manual is intended for use by warehouse proprietors, importers, and other parties in the import-export community.