Singapore Customs is “decommissioning” its Singapore Customs Academy website now that customs courses will be provided by two of the country’s technology schools (see 1911290011), the agency said in a Dec. 23 press release. The website will be decommissioned Dec. 30, and the academy's existing suite of courses will transfer to the schools for participants to register for instruction on those schools' websites.

Indonesia aims to export between 100,000 and 500,000 metric tons of “premium” rice in 2020, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service report released Dec. 23. Indonesia had been a net importer of rice in recent years, USDA said, due to local supplies struggling to meet demand. USDA said it “remains unclear” how the country will meet the proposed export volumes and how it will compete with less expensive rice from Thailand and Vietnam. The country’s media outlets reported the “main destination” for the exports may be Saudi Arabia, as Indonesians prepare for pilgrimages to Mecca in 2020, the report said.

A “new collection format” for the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls’ Commodity Jurisdiction form DS-4076 is now available on the Defense Export Control and Compliance System portal, DDTC said in a Dec. 23 notice. The changes “address additional sources of jurisdiction considerations and refinements to the supporting information,” the notice said. Previous submissions are available through the DECCS CJ Launching Pad, the agency said. DDTC is urging users with existing forms in “Draft” status to review the form before submitting to “verify accuracy of the entire form.” For completed forms, the agency said, the original submission’s documentation is available as a PDF, which “ensures the historical accuracy of the submissions, while keeping the system in line with the current version of the form.”

Latvia’s Financial and Capital Market Commission (FCMC) fined a Swedish bank more than $1.8 million dollars for anti-money laundering and sanctions violations, the FCMC said in a Dec. 20 press release. The bank, AS SEB banka, did not “fully” ensure its clients were not participating in money laundering activities, the press release said, and did not properly screen a customer for sanctions violations. After the violations, the bank “independently” improved its anti-money laundering compliance program, FCMC said. The agency also said the “risk level” of the violations were “low” and the bank followed through on the settlement agreement, which included two external audits, an improved “internal documentation” system and an improved information technology system to “monitor customer transactions.”

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 16-20 in case you missed them.

The European Union plans to finish rolling out its electronic licensing regime for dual-use exports by 2021, said Gabriela Stoica, a lead analyst of digital trade policy at the European Commission. The regime is being tested by four member states -- Latvia, Italy, Romania and Greece -- and the commission plans to add Belgium as a pilot tester soon, Stoica said. In the program’s next step, the commission plans to launch an e-licensing platform for steel and aluminum imports under the EU’s prior surveillance licensing regime. Stoica said those e-licenses will be “fully live with all member states” by Dec. 31.

Richard O'Neill was named partner at Neville Peterson, where he was previously an associate attorney, the law firm said in an emailed news release. O'Neill's work is focused on “all aspects of international trade and Customs law, including tariff classification, appraisement, country of origin and trade preference programs, Section 301 and Section 232 tariffs, Free Trade Agreements, export controls and trade remedies,” the firm said.

The World Customs Organization issued the following release on commercial trade and related matters:​​

KPMG on Dec. 20 released an alert on value-added tax identification numbers in the European Union’s upcoming “quick fixes” VAT reform system, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2020. The identification numbers will be used to apply exemptions for supplies within the EU, KPMG said. Previously, VAT exemptions could not be refused “merely because of the fact that the supplier did not receive a valid VAT identification number from the customer.” With the upcoming change, the use of a valid identification number of the customer will be “a material condition of the VAT exemption for intra-Community supplies,” KPMG said. If the customer does not provide a valid number, the supplier “cannot apply the VAT exemption and will need to invoice local VAT of the EU Member State of dispatch of the goods.”

The European Commission released a Dec. 20 guidance on the upcoming changes to its value-added tax measures as part of its “2020 Quick Fixes,” an effort aimed at simplifying trade and tax measures among EU member states. The guidance provides information on VATs relating to “call-off stock arrangements, chain transactions and the exemption for intra-Community supplies of goods,” which are scheduled to take effect across most member states (see 1912120015) by Jan. 1. The 85-page “explanatory notes” provide “help in understanding” the new VAT provisions, the commission said, and are the result of discussions with member states and EU industry representatives. The guidance is “not legally binding,” “not comprehensive” and is still a “work in progress,” the commission stressed, stating that member states may issue their own VAT guidance. The guidance provides information on exporting goods to member states, destruction or loss of goofs, definitions of certain VAT-related terms and more.