TradeLane

A change in Prime Minister in the UK on July 24th has renewed focus on Brexit and its impacts across the Eurozone. Currently, the UK is set to leave the European Union (EU) on October 31st, with or without a deal. Given that the current withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK has been voted down three times by the UK parliament, and due to the renewed political prioritization of no-deal planning by the current government, trade compliance professionals are building their Brexit plans with the assumption of no deal.  

In October 2018, France signed law 2018-898 in order to strengthen the fight against tax evasion and customs fraud.  Following this, the Judicial Investigations Department of Finance (SJEF) was created on July 1^st.

March and April were stressful for EU-based Trade Compliance professionals. The threat of a looming no-deal Brexit caused many of us to spend countless hours watching the news, waiting for concrete feedback on the future state of the UK-EU trading relationship. 

The presentation of the government’s budget before Parliament has always been an interesting affair. The perfunctory annual photo of the Chancellor of the Exchequer standing in front of Number 11 Downing Street with the red briefcase containing the Government’s budget for the year always seems to make a dull affair more interesting.