TORONTO, (Jan. 25, 2005) — The Ontario Trucking Association is commencing a survey of carriers being hit with fines of $5,000 – $10,000 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Last week, Today’s Trucking.com reported that carriers are starting to see minimum fines of $5,000 for not following the new advance cargo reporting requirement to the letter of the law.

Now OTA wants to explore the extent that this problem exists. The association says that initially there was an expectation that CBP would fine only those parties to the transaction who were actually responsible for the violation — including customs brokers and shippers.

The rules require non-FAST carriers (who after Jan. 30 will not be able to handle BRASS shipments) to submit Pre-Arrival Processing System (PAPS) data at least an hour before arrival. FAST-approved shipments are allowed more flexibility and carriers must pre-notify CBP of the load no later than 30 minutes before the driver arrives at the border.

Anecdotal reports relayed to Today’s Trucking suggest carriers are getting fined because brokers have not forwarded U.S. Customs the information before the driver arrives at the border. Carriers are still responsible for verifying that the data exists in Customs’ system at least one hour prior to (arrival).

Many times, the carriers cannot get hold of the broker to verify if the information has been processed by Customs or if the process failed. Causes for PAPS failures include, jammed or overloaded fax machines, incomplete documentation, credit issues between the broker and the client, or more likely, just a massive increase in the volume of work for the brokers.

OTA says that CBP had indicated that in the preliminary phase of enforcement, attention would be focused on “egregious violations” – in other words carriers that have a history of non-compliance and/or have made no attempt to comply.

It is not clear that this policy is being followed either, says OTA. Carriers may be getting fined even when they are not responsible for the violation and have done everything reasonable to be in compliance. The carrier’s only recourse in these circumstances is to enter into a “penalty mitigation” process with the fines officer at each port, and having to prove that the customs broker, for example, was responsible for the non-compliance.

CTA has already begun lobbying CBP to reevaluate how the security agency assesses penalties for the rule. CTA is hoping this survey provides a detailed snapshot of the situation.

OTA member carriers receiving a fine for USTA violations should complete the survey posted at OTA’s website and return it no later than January 31st. Non-member fleets can also participate by contacting Rebecka Torn at info@ontruck.org.

All individual responses will be kept strictly confidential.