Stephen Mitchell Associates

A series of Timber Risk Assessments for many countries have been released by NEPCon - an international non-profit organisation fostering and certifying responsible trade in forest products. The detailed risk assessments, designed for compliance of suppliers of wood products into the European Union, may be useful for Australian importers if sourcing timber harvested in countries for which there is no Country Specific Guideline or no FSC National Risk Assessments. Access the NE

A UK timber furniture importer has been fined £5,000 plus costs for failing to exercise due diligence in compliance with the European Union's Timber Regulation before importing a timber sideboard from India. The importer has previously been served a Notice of Remedial Action and a warning letter. More details here

We’ve been helping clients tidy up loose ends before the end of the soft start compliance period. Here are a few tips for to make life easier at the same time as helping comply with the due diligence requirements: Approving new suppliers/vendors Amending any standard operating procedures you have for approving new suppliers/vendors of wood or paper products to take into account compliance with the Illegal Logging Prohibition regulation is essential. This is so that the person

The amendments are explicit in what you need to check if you are relying on FSC or PEFC certified product to comply with the Regulations. I.e. You must: Check that the supplier has an FSC or PEFC licence or is chain of custody (CoC) certified; the licence or certificate doesn’t expire before your certified product lands in Australia and the product you are purchasing is within the supplier's scope of their licence or CoC certification; Obtain a copy of their licence or CoC ce

Some amendments to the Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulation are currently before the Australian Senate and can be viewed here. Unless something dramatic happens (politically!) they will go through as they are next week and will be integrated into the Regulation before 1st January 2018.

The Australian Government has announced here the end of the "soft start" compliance period. This means that from 1st January 2018 the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources has the option of fining importers that aren’t complying with the due diligence requirements in the Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulations. The size of any potential fines increased earlier this year. For not complying with the due diligence requirements an importer can be fined AUD$63,000 for each