Customs and Trade Compliance

Overview

Having been maintaining good and smooth communication with the Ministry of Commerce of China and its affiliated agencies, the General Administration of Customs and its agencies, directly affiliated agencies or subordinate customs agencies, commodity inspection and quality inspection, and import and export chambers of commerce, ZHH is familiar with their procedures and rules, well versed in customs laws, and informed in real-time of customs laws of China's major trading partners. With its knowledge regularly accumulated from this sector and with the assistant of its global network of cooperative institutions, ZHH can immediately provide clients with the latest domestic and foreign legal rules and policies for customs and trade compliance. ZHH regularly provides clients with legal services under customs laws, including but not limited to free trade zone and bonded port affairs, processing trade supervision, MNC transfer pricing, customs commodity classification and valuation, identification of country of origin, import and export control, and customs IPR valuation, as well as customs-related legal and policy advice, communicates with customs, commodity inspection and quality inspection, commerce and other administrative departments on behalf of clients, offers advice and on-site guidance to clients on customs inspections, attends customs laws-related administrative hearings, reconsideration, administrative litigations and even criminal litigation cases on behalf of clients in connection with the said competent administrative departments, to maximize the interests of clients, ensure the legalization and standardization of customs supervision, reduce or avoid losses incurred to clients from the misuse or misapplication of legal rules by customs, commodity inspection and other market law enforcement agencies.

 

Lawyer Team

ZHH's lawyers have dealt with lots of preliminary consulting and regulatory guidance of customs inspection, smuggling and other cases of violations of customs supervision and investigation, penalty hearings, administrative reconsideration, administrative litigations and possible criminal cases, and provided professional customs law services to clients from industries such as retail, automobile, auto parts, and electronic products and medicines. Given that the customs law practice places high requirements on lawyers for comprehensive capacity. ZHH's professional customs legal team has recruited experienced law enforcement and judicial staffs that have worked for years in customs, law enforcement agencies, courts and public security bureaus, who are qualified enough to effectively promote cases ahead in practices and solve problems for clients based on their precise case-control and in-depth study and understanding of applicable laws and regulations.

 

Major Services

  • routine customs consulting
  • tariff levy consulting
  • compliance review of customs papers and documents
  • processing trade supervision
  • customs commodity classification (including pre-classification)
  • customs commodity valuation
  • customs IPR filing and protection
  • commodity inspection and quality inspection process consulting
  • identification of appellations of origin
  • quota and import and export restrictions
  • free trade zone and bonded port arrangements
  • response to customs verification, investigation, inspection, anti-smuggling and other investigations
  • customs-related administrative hearings, administrative reconsideration and administrative litigations
  • customs-relatedcriminal punishment
  • customs law-based basic knowledge training

 

Latest Typical Projects/Cases

  • Legal services for customs clearance to a well-known foreign-invested company

The team applied for customs filing and registration and electronic port IC card and made special seals for customs declaration for an important foreign-invested chemical company

  • Long-termlegal advice services to a Swiss aircraft company

The team serves as the long-term legal consultant of an aircraft manufacturing joint venture established by a Swiss aircraft company in China and is appointed by such company to deal with regular customs affairs (including annual joint declaration to the Customs and the Market Supervision Bureau), declaration for export tax rebates (or exemption), and declaration for export commodity import transfer, etc.

  • Legal services to an engine manufacturing company in Chongqing for its IPR customs compliance project

The team provided special legal services on behalf of an engine manufacturing company in Chongqing for IPRs in relation to the injection system jointly developed with an Austrian company, including filing at China Customs in connection with overseas IPRs and other affairs.