If there is a recurring theme in international trade, it is almost certainly complexity. There are countless moving parts, niche rules, special considerations, and even strange corner cases that are all necessary for staying compliant while trading internationally. This often-moving target of compliance is what makes an extra pair of eyes so important for keeping your import business on the straight and narrow.

For example, are you familiar with the denied or restricted party list? If you are, then you should know better than most how important it is to have a Licensed Broker to ensure that your business isn’t unwittingly dealing with business entities represented on this list. You should also know that PCB provides denied-party screening services along with its logistics and trade advisory offerings to help you avoid any affiliations with unexpected illegal entities. 

If you aren’t familiar with a denied party or the screening service that detects them, you have come to the right place.

What are Denied Party Lists?

A ‘denied party list,’ or the slightly more flexible ‘restricted party list,’ are governmental or international lists of individuals or organizations with whom business is restricted or outright forbidden. The reasons an entity may find themselves on one of these lists are as varied as its members, but they can range from corrupt business practices to smuggling all the way up to terrorism. 

What makes these lists particularly tricky for you, as an honest and upstanding importer, is that they are often updated daily, and the entries come in all shapes and sizes—none of which are easily identifiable with black hats and a twirled mustache. Knowing exactly who is persona non grata in the world of international trade at any given time can be deceptively challenging, and the consequences of dealing with these businesses of ill-repute, even unintentionally, can be significant, with the response including fines, loss of importing privileges, and criminal charges. 

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to avoid unintentionally inviting a fox into the proverbial hen house.   

Denied/Restricted Party Screenings

At two different points, PCB can help you screen potential patterns or business associations - our brokerage team can help when entries first arrive, and PCB Freight Management can help when we receive shipment export filings. In both cases, we ensure they are not represented on these lists. While this service does have a small fee, its benefits far outweigh any potential costs, and soon, it may be a mandatory part of air and ocean freight. 

Who Should Be Screened? 

We have had clients discover that a business entity they are working with is on one of the lists; it’s not as rare an occurrence as it may seem initially. After all, it’s not information that these less-than-scrupulous businesses are keen to give up freely in early negotiation. So, it behooves you to screen every supplier or business contact you work with to ensure you are covered. It is worth reminding you that working with one of these businesses is often illegal, and ignorance of their status isn’t an effective defense. 

The best way to keep your business safe is by screening every company you work with - it’s part of your due diligence and an essential part of the import process.

What Does Denied Party Screening Involve?

As previously mentioned, Government agencies constantly update these lists, often daily. That means you need someone who knows how to query these lists and also intimately knows your supply chain. At the point of brokerage entry or shipment export request, our team can identify all relevant parties involved and check them against the denied/restricted party list. The process is quick, easy, and affordable, and with PCB, you know it will be comprehensive and accurate. 

Denied/Restricted party screenings are a remarkably lightweight process that goes a long way to protecting your business, and it is often coupled with PCB Freight Management’s complementary Supply Chain Mapping Service to give you a complete view of everyone and everything involved in your chain. Taken together, they are among the best ways to stay safe when trading internationally. Add that to PCB’s suite of Trade Advisory Services, and you have an entire team of experts standing by to help you ship with confidence and peace of mind.

Please contact our team today for help with this or if you have any other logistics-based concerns. We’re here to help make your next international business venture an easy success.

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