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Richard Mojica Quoted on Possible Company Compliance Programs Changes Under the USMCA in Law360

Subtitle
"What You Need to Know as NAFTA 2.0 Takes Effect"

Law360

According to Richard Mojica, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will require companies to re-evaluate their current compliance practices. Effective July 1, the USMCA replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), updating some areas of NAFTA and completely changing it in others. "I've heard this many times, where companies started doing it one way in the '90s when NAFTA was passed and they just kind of set it and forget it," Mojica said. "One of the benefits of this whole thing is that it allows companies to say, 'We have a new program, a new thing, how are we going to do this?'" One key change that may be a problem area for companies is that the USMCA will allow certificates of origin to be prepared by importers. Under NAFTA, these certificates were prepared only by exporters. "That's a trap, in my view. In the past, under NAFTA, the importer had an escape by saying, 'I am relying on the certificate that [the exporter] gave me,'" Mojica stated. "Now, if you certify, you are opening up to that more immediate enforcement scrutiny in a more pronounced way."