First post Brexit shipment from Italy

I had to laugh when the vehicle turned up last week. Our main carrier DSV had obviously subcontracted the job and as you see a vehicle blazoned ‘Eurospeed’ arrived at Bicester last Friday.

While the shipment made the journey in its usual time frame of 3 to 4 days without any issue at UK customs the whole process has now become more of a ‘Euroslow’ experience as I will document for you below.

So how have things changed for organs?

Well the main delay now starts with booking the vehicle as the hauliers will not accept a booking until the pro forma invoice is available. In the past we just booked so many ‘load feet’ of a 40 ft trailer well in advance and a proforma was given to the driver in Italy when they made the collection. Now the proforma has to be uploaded to the haulage contractor’s system prior to making a firm booking that can then take as much as 2 weeks before a vehicle might be available.

We had taken care to prepare for all the increased paperwork now needed to accompany the goods well in advance. Confirmed wording of certificates of origin, advised Italy of our ‘EORI’ number required to be quoted on all documents and we had obtained our HMRC duty deferment account should we have had a hard Brexit.

All the bases were covered, or so we thought!

Then as the vehicle turned up at the factory in Italy we were presented with a two page document to be completed on behalf of Viscount Italy by a notary in regards this specific shipment covering a mass of certifications including:-

1. That the goods shipped complied with 15 different EU regulations drafted and enacted between 2007 and 2016.
2. That nothing done in the manufacture of the goods had provided assistance to the military activities of the Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Korea, Birmania, Uzbekistan, Sudan and Liberia.
3. Nothing carried out in this shipment breached restrictions contained in various EU articles imposing specific restrictive measures against certain persons and entities associated with the Al-Qaeda
4. Nothing in the manufacturing process involved the unregulated use of fluorine gas, the use of dangerous chemicals or was likely to cause a reduction in the ozone layer.
5. And finally, for good measure that the goods do not form part of a shipment of personal protective equipment.

And all of the above to be certified by a notary on the notaries headed official stationery.

You might imagine at this point I rather gave up the will to live and was left somewhat in amazement as to the level of largely pointless documentation government left to its own devices can seek to require its exporters to provide. I export all over the world and have nothing to complete save an invoice and certificate of origin.

Anyway, much to my surprise this documentation was forthcoming in under an hour and the instruments arrived in the UK a little under 4 days later without any further intervention.

So we have now successfully sent parts for repair back to Italy and received some new instruments all post Brexit.  I am pleased to confirm that in all respects we are back open for business, well except of course for Covid and lockdown!