The High Court decision on the tariff classification of ‘Vita gummies’ and ‘Garcinia weight-loss preparation’.  We have previously written at length on decisions of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), or State or Federal Courts on the classification of goods for customs purposes. The classification of goods is a vital process as many things follow from…

This article was first published by Daily Cargo News. As I write this article, news of the spread of the ‘coronavirus’ becomes worse on a regular basis. According to today’s media, nearly 60 million people in China’s largest cities are in lockdown, there are 2700 confirmed cases and 80 people have died. There have been cases…

The decision of the Victorian County Court in Technology Swiss Pty Ltd and Ecology SRL v Famous Pacific Shipping Pty Ltd which was delivered on 30 September 2019 and published on 13 November 2019 has already received some attention and commentary within industry. Much of the attention has focussed on one of the outcomes of the decision…

This article was first published by Air Cargo. On occasion, life has a habit of appearing to imitate art. Both Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ and Kafka’s ‘The Castle’ are now widely being considered as contemporary literary representations of the UK’s tortured Brexit process. Both works are underpinned by the themes of frustration and absurdity, with the…

This article was first published by Daily Cargo News. As much of Australia’s focus was taken by the Melbourne Cup carnival, the leaders of 15 of the 16 nations negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) announced the conclusion of ‘text-based’ negotiations with formal signing now expected in 2020. The announcement was made during the third RCEP summit…

This article was first published by Daily Cargo News. The Australian Trusted Trader Programme (ATTP) is one of the lead offerings of the Australian Border Force (ABF) and represents an example of how industry and government can work closely together to co-develop a program which has largely delivered on its intended outcomes and is actively supported…

The term seems to have first arisen in the early 1990s with reference to an ‘open distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way’ and was developed to serve as a ‘public transaction ledger’ for the bitcoin cryptocurrency. Of course, blockchain no longer exists solely as…

In the week leading to the recent Federal election, the Minister for Industry Science and Technology (Minister) released her decisions as to the imposition of interim dumping and countervailing duties on steel pallet racking and PVC covered electrical cabling Both followed lengthy investigations by the Anti-Dumping Commission (ADC) including several extensions of time for the…

During each year we discuss various important decisions handed down by the Tribunals and Courts. Recently, this included the High Court appeal in Comptroller General of Customs v Zappia from late 2018 which has been covered in webinars and presentations to various groups. We can now report that the High Court has granted leave to appeal sought…

I write this article on 12 April 2019, shortly after the announcement of the Federal Budget and the announcement of the date for the Federal election. As expected, this period encompassed the usual claim and counter – claim between the major political parties and the usual cynicism that even after the election, the political landscape…

The Federal Budget 2019 was formally released by the Federal Government last night (2 April 2019). However, in an election year, the Federal Government took the unusual path of confirming that the government would not be seeking to pass new legislation implementing that Budget in the remaining Parliamentary sitting days. Instead, the Budget legislation would…

For a variety of reasons Australians have wholeheartedly embraced the various means of electronic communication and social media platforms. One lawyer’s brief history of the digital revolution In large part, technological progress has been benign, albeit confusing for certain generations. After all, when I first started in the law, our most sophisticated form of communication…

AS THE confusion continues over whether the UK’s exit from the EU will be “hard”, “soft” or “just right”, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)has announced certain goods entering Britain from the EU will be allowed through without checks or payment of duty for a temporary period. This approach is consistent with promises from the UK…