UK businesses will be protected after the departure from the EU on 29 March as the new Independent Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) appears to be on track.
Chief Executive Designate of TRA, Claire Bassett, recently reported that the TRA would be prepared for the UK’s EU exit to the International Trade Committee stating that 70 per cent of staff had been recruited with 90 people already appointed.
The TRA’s comprehensive technical training programme has already been completed by over a third of those recruited, who have also been equipped with all the economic, accounting and legal knowledge they require for trade remedy investigations.
World Trade Organisation rules will apply to the TRA, so investigations will still be carried out in a similar fashion. Trade remedy decisions will go through a statutory appeals system.
A website will be launched for the TRA with a feature that allows the submittal of evidence and applications for any reviews and investigations currently open at the time. Several rounds of user and development testing have been completed on the website which will be ready to launch by 29 March.
Bassett has stated: “We are committed to ensuring that UK industry continues to have the protection it needs against injury caused by unfair trading practices, or unforeseen surges in imports, once we have left the EU. That is why the Department has developed an independent trade remedies framework and I am looking forward to leading the TRA, to deliver this.”
TRA will take a primary role in independent trade policy upon the UK’s exit from the EU when the UK will have the ability to take control of its own trade agenda.
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