Legislators involved in regulating international trade have certainly been working overtime in the past few years. In the world of Customs Law we have seen:

• The introduction of Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) certification as a response to the heightened threat of international terrorism
• The introduction of Senior Accounting Officer (SAO)provisions holding Financial Directors or other senior accountants personally liable for corporate tax declarations
• The raising of the bar for achieving customs (re) authorisations (such as Customs Simplified Procedures)
• The Modernised Customs Code (although we are still waiting for the Implementing Regulations, the planned changes under the MCC are significant)
• The tightening of Money Laundering Regulations.

The Bribery Act has radically overhauled the UK's existing legislation that has been criticised at international level. In fact, the old legislation was one of the reasons why the UK's score on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index has dropped from 8.4 to 7.7 (the UK is now ranked 17th).

R (on the application of Glenn & Co (Essex) Ltd) v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2010] All ER (D) 163 (Jun)

HMRC officers entered the claimants premises unannounced and without a warrant. The purpose of the operation was to conduct interviews and to inspect business records, including computers. While at the premises, the Revenue officers disconnected and removed a computer server and nineteen computers with the purpose of interrogating the hard disks. All but one of the computers was returned the next day, with the remaining one and the server being returned the following day.

After one of the most protracted trade disputes in modern history, two agreements were signed that will hopefully put an end to the "banana wars". The Geneva Agreement on Trade in Bananas between the European Union and Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Venezuela and the Agreement on Trade in Bananas between the EU and the USA.

EC Regulation 972/2006 allows for certain types of Basmati rice from India and Pakistan to be imported free of duty provided that the importer had a suitable licence and certificate of authenticity (which is issued by approved bodies in India and Pakistan and needs to be presented to the licence issuing authority (the Rural Payments Agency) at the time of applying for the licence). Most Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) licenses have a 5% tolerance which means for example that if you are applying to import 20,000 kilograms of rice, the licence will show 21,000 as it accounts for the 5% tolerance.