Webinar Brexit

On Thursday, December 17 the Holland International Distribution Council has organized the last Brexit webinar in a series of three this year. Head of UK Trade David Besseling from Samskip, senior Policy Advisor Enforcement and International Affairs Rick Ligthart and corporate Advisor & Post Brexit Specialist Raimond Nicodem of Nicodem & Company informed the attendees about all the ins and outs around Brexit.

With two weeks to go until Brexit, it will be difficult for companies to switch to other modalities for their goods, let alone set up a completely new supply chain in two weeks. Raimond Nicodem’s strategic analysis therefore mainly looked at the first half of 2021. The border between the UK and EU is then a fait accompli. Rick Ligthart explained what the role of Customs is in such a case and to what formalities this will lead to. David Besseling advocated the use of short sea solutions as an alternative to traditional truck transport.

Missed it? Please click here to see the webinar.

Presentation Raimond Nicodem, Nicodem & Company
Presentation David Besseling, Samskip
Presentation Rick Ligthart, Dutch Customs

Questions and answers

Q: When the Brexit Emergency Plan comes into force, will that release us temporaily from customs formalities for a maximum of 6 months?
A: No, in the national emergency plans this can’t be decided so starting on January 1st 2021 all the customs formalities need to be fullfilled,

Q: Are the future UK regulations similar as currently in Switzerland or any other non eu country or will there be a special relation UK-EU as per other countries
A: The EU and the UK are negotiating a Free Trade Agreement. The outcome of that process will determine the relation between them.
For the UK regulations please check https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-border-operating-model
In this document the UK Government has published the procedures and formalities for trade between the EU and the UK from January 1, 2021.
Note:The negotiations are ongoing, the future relation is discussed and at this moment we don’t know the outcome.

Q: Can you please explain how Brexit will impact trade mark rules and if companies will have to register new trade marks for the UK post Jan. 1? Also, will trademarks registered before 2021 require new registration for the UK?
A: Existing rights will be severely affected by Brexit. It is wise to verify which effects apply to your specific products. Typically, those rights will need to apply for separate UK trademarks as well as EU rights.

Q: Has anyone thought about the potential expansion of an unregulated privately owned drone based exchange market between the UK and Continental Europe?
A: The regulations on drones specifically are already massively complicated and will also vary from one country to another. In this case, also border regulations will apply. Besides, products have to be landed at a designated space, like a harbor or airport. Just dropping materials or products by drones is in most cases prohibited.

Q: Raimond, could you please elaborate on the Internet impact you mentioned?  After all, this the World Wide Web, where users have neither information nor control over the endless number of routes their communications may use at any given time. Is that not automatically taking care of the problem?
A: Cloud services and the fileservers therein might present themselves as virtual, hence they are physically located somewhere (state or country). Data stored on those servers are bound by GDPR. This means in this particular case if servers are located in the UK with European client data stored on them, European GDPR is applicable and therefore stringent regulations have to be put in place. This is not yet implemented as no Economic Partner Agreement between the UK and the EU has been agreed upon. The fact that from a user’s perspective, the worldwide web seems virtual, does not mean regulations will not apply to it.