The thing is most, if not all, of these companies have in-house customs teams.

Specialists well versed in customs and other non-tariff barriers.

They probably prepared an impact assessment based on an FTA scenario a few years back.

/1 https://twitter.com/ITVJoel/status/1347179167377481729

The time to express concern over the range of new non-tariff barriers and be vocal about the fact what an FTA means for the private sector was when we opted for an FTA.

While NTBs may be a surprise for SMEs, MNCs must have known about a lot of these changes.

/2

This is simply not true. The fact that goods need to originate to be traded tariff-free under a tread deal is part of *checks notes* every single FTA out there.

Like every single one of them.

/3

While I fully understand that many SMEs just didn't realise that (Gov's rhetoric not helpful here) but MNCs?

Seriously?

I know some of the custom specialists that work for these companies. They are excellent. No way they would have failed to give the business a heads up

/4

I have often pointed out the fact that the UK Gov issued guidance incredibly late making it very difficult for businesses to prepare. There was a lot of uncertainty up until mid-December.

But it's a two-way street.

/5

If you're a large business (with a customs/int trade team) and you're surprised that this FTA still comes with a range of non-tariff barriers then I think you haven't done your homework and you probably should have.

/6

On the other hand, big business being so vocal about what non-tariff barriers mean would have been helpful a few years back.

Not saying it would have changed anything, but that was missing from the debate.

/7

Again, fully understand why that was impossible for many companies to engage in the Brexit debate (shareholders/stakeholders/politics etc) but it just sounds a bit wrong when you raise issues that you should have and could have known about a few years back.

/end