Building a Trade Compliance Programme: A Practitioner's Guide to Classification, Origin, Supply Chain Diligence, and Detention Response
By Casey Scott McKay ·
A practitioner's guide to building a trade compliance programme from nothing, or repairing one that exists on paper only. It begins with governance — who decides classification, who owns origin, and who can stop a shipment — because every technical failure downstream traces to an unowned decision. It then works through the classification procedure, the origin determination file, and the valuation questions that intellectual property counsel controls without realising it. A long central section covers supply chain mapping and the traceability documentation the forced labour regime requires. Later steps cover marking, intellectual property recordation, broker and supplier management, and the internal audit that finds errors before an auditor does. It closes with detention response, prior disclosure, and the metrics that show whether the programme works.
IP and Technology > General IP | Guide | Published 21 September 2023 - Updated 21 January 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Why programmes fail, and it is never the law
A company discovers a trade compliance problem in one of three ways: an audit, a detention, or a competitor's allegation. In every case the investigation follows the same path and arrives at the same finding.
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