Canada and Colombia were removed from the priority watch list for intellectual property violations, and Tajikistan moved off the watch list, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's annual review of countries' policies on patents, trade secrets, counterfeits and piracy. Saudi Arabia was moved up to the priority watch list because of deteriorating conditions there, including "rampant satellite and online piracy," a USTR official said April 25.

The European Union is postponing its deadline for making all customs processes in the EU electronic, it said in a notice published in the April 25 Official Journal. Previously set for Dec. 31, 2020, under the Union Customs Code, the new deadlines for creating electronic systems for many EU customs processes, including customs declarations, entry summaries and export filings, will now fall in 2022 or 2025, depending on the process.

In the April 24 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The United Kingdom's HM Revenue & Customs on April 23 updated its guidance on warehousing procedures to add information on what to do in cases of discrepancies on import documentation, including under- and over-shipments. All goods imported into warehouses in excess of their declared quantity will be considered dutiable and “warehoused provisionally until the matter is resolved,” according to the update.

The Canada Border Services Agency issued an update to the Electronic Commerce Client Requirements Document (ECCRD) for Integrated Import Declaration, it said in an April 23 email. "The changes identified within this Addendum range from minor corrections/additional instructions to [partner government agency] legislative and regulation rule changes," the CBSA said. "Please note that any item highlighted as a Rule Change or Code Change will be available in the Testing environment in May 2019. Following a 5-month period for client testing, the changes identified in this addendum will be migrated into CBSA’s Production environment in October 2019," it said. CBSA recently said it would delay the retirement of the legacy release options (see 1903280062).

Four Chinese nationals were arrested in Singapore after they concealed alcohol shipments from China as soy sauce and did not pay tariffs, according to an April 23 notice from Singapore Customs. The men were involved in a scheme that imported more than 9,000 bottles of “duty-unpaid liquor” packed in more than 600 boxes, the notice said. The importers stored the boxes in an industrial building before Customs officers checked the goods and discovered the smuggling scheme, according to the notice. Singapore Customs said the men evaded about $186,000 worth of duties and about $17,000 worth of the country’s Goods and Services Tax. Importers who fail to pay taxes and duties can be fined “up to 40 times the amount” evaded and face a maximum six-year prison sentence, the notice said. “We will spare no effort in going after sellers as well as buyers of duty-unpaid liquor,” Assistant Director-General of Customs Yeo Sew Meng said in a statement.

Japan’s Cabinet on April 9 strengthened export controls against South Sudan in response to the United Nations Security Council’s 2018 arms embargoes and sanctions against the country, according to a notice from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Japan added the country “to the list of the areas subject to strict export control” in its Export Trade Control Order, the notice said.

Darus Zehrbach of West Virginia received a six-month prison sentence for making a false statement involving the exportation of electric scooters destined for Iran, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia said in a news release. "In February 2015, Zehrbach received a letter from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, denying his application for a license to export electric scooters to Iran," the Justice Department said. "In June 2016, Zehrbach exported eight electric scooters to the United Arab Emirates, knowing that the scooters would be shipped to Iran." Zehrbach admitted to telling a Commerce Department agent "that a shipment he sent to Iran had originated in China when in fact that shipment originated in the United States."

Two former top executives of Total Reclaim, billed as the Northwest’s largest e-waste recycler, were sentenced April 23 to 28 months for wire fraud conspiracy in connection with the illegal export of 8.3 million pounds of junked TVs to Hong Kong between 2008 and 2015, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle. Craig Lorch, 61, and Jeff Zirkle, 55, earned millions by promising to recycle e-waste responsibly but secretly shipped it overseas where it was destroyed in an “environmentally unsafe” manner, it said. “Motivated by greed, these defendants betrayed every pledge they made to be good environmental stewards,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said. The green group Basel Action Network tipped off authorities to the scheme after electronically tracking the e-waste to Hong Kong, the office said. After BAN confronted Lorch and Zirkle with its findings, they tried to “cover up their fraud by altering hundreds of shipping records,” it alleged. According to the sentencing memorandum, "Lorch altered Total Reclaim shipping manifests to make it appear" that the company "was shipping plastic, rather than flat screens, to Hong Kong." Efforts to reach the defendants’ lawyers were unsuccessful. BAN didn’t comment.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two people and three entities for “acting as conduits for sanctions evasion schemes” for Hizballah, OFAC said in an April 24 press release. Belgium-based Wael Bazzi and Lebanon-based Hassan Tabaja were sanctioned for acting on behalf of family members who are Hizballah financers, OFAC said, and Belgium-based Voltra Transcor Energy BVBA, Belgium-based OFFISCOOP NV and United Kingdom-based BSQRD Limited were sanctioned for being owned by Bazzi. OFAC also updated an existing item on its Specially Designated Nationals List, adding Energy Engineers Procurement and Construction as an alias for Global Trading Group NV, which is owned by Wael Bazzi’s father, Mohammad Bazzi.