In the May 7 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The United Kingdom on May 3 published guidance on several sanctions regimes, including the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida sanctions, the Democratic Republic of Congo sanctions, the Counter-Terrorism sanctions and the Zimbabwe sanctions. The guidance documents describe practices for sanctions compliance, including in financial- and trade-related sectors, and detail exceptions for the sanctions regimes. Licenses for trade exceptions may only be issued under the Zimbabwe sanctions and the Congo sanctions, according to the documents. Violating any of the sanctions in the financial sector can lead to a six-month prison sentence and a fine, while sanctions violations in the trade sector can lead to a maximum 10-year prison sentence and a fine.

Italy delayed the effective date of value-added taxes on “remote sales” of certain goods through “electronic interfaces,” including mobile phones, video game consoles, tablets and laptops, according to a May 2 notice from KPMG. The taxes will take effect Jan. 1, 2021, KPMG said, and VAT payments on remote sales are not required for the first quarter of 2019. However, KPMG said that beginning July 1, 2019, “taxable persons that make such remote sales have a reporting obligation for transactions conducted between” Feb. 13 and May 1 this year. The changes were announced as part of a decree regarding “urgent economic growth measures” published April 30, KPMG said. The decree also expanded the VAT reporting requirements for sales of all goods through “an electronic interface.”

In the May 3 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

In the May 2 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

In the April 30 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The European Union is setting to almost zero its long-standing retaliatory tariffs on certain U.S. products for U.S. distributions of antidumping and countervailing duties to affected U.S. industries, it said in a notice. With distributions amounting to only a few thousand this year, the tariff, which applies to corn of EU subheading 0710.40.00, jeans of EU subheading 6204.62.31, mobile cranes of heading 8705.10.00 and eyeglasses frames of former subheading 9003.19.00, will fall to 0.001%, down from 4.3% last year. The new tariff rates take effect May 1.

The European Court of Justice on April 30 upheld a controversial provision of the recent trade agreement between the European Union and Canada, clearing the way for full ratification of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. The court ruled that the investment court system set out in CETA does not conflict with EU treaties. “The decision by the Court means that no changes have to be made to the text of the EU-Canada agreement and Member States' ratifications can proceed,” the European Commission said in a press release. “Equally, no change will be required in the ICS provisions included in the agreements with Singapore, Mexico and Vietnam. The Commission will continue to negotiate the Investment Court System in bilateral agreements with other partners,” the release said. “The agreement with Canada is under provisional application since September 2017 and can only enter fully into force once ratified by all Member States and concluded by the Council.”

In the April 29 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

It's unclear how North Korean leader Kim Jong Un got the armored Mercedes-Maybach limousines made by Daimler that Kim used for several recent meetings with international leaders, a spokesman for the company said. In an April 29 email, a Daimler spokesman said the company has a “comprehensive export control process” to “prevent” all sales to North Korea. “We have no indication how those vehicles have come to the use of” North Korea, he said. Exports of luxury goods to North Korea are banned under United Nations sanctions, and sanctions imposed by the U.S. allow the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to designate any person who “engages in a significant export to or import from North Korea,” according to the Treasury.