Getting the lead out: Brand protection............................................
One theme that you’ll see again and again in this book is that the buck essen-
tially never stops. Companies are partnered in long and complex value chains
around the world. And guess what? You can’t say you’re responsible just for
your part because the marketplace, and increasingly, the government says
otherwise. Mattel learned this lesson quite painfully in 2007 when its brand
became synonymous with lead paint on toys. Laws like the Foreign Trade
Corrupt Practices Act, which relates to bribery in other countries, mean that
legally and in terms of your brand, you and your partners are one big family
and as we all know, what one family member does affects all the rest.
Making Sure You’re Complying with All
19,391 Exporting Restrictions
Exporting is generally less complex than importing, but there are a whole
different set of challenges involved. Violating export laws and regulations
can carry a much greater cost in terms of fines and damage to a company’s
reputation than similar violations on the import side. (And no, there probably
aren’t really19,391 exporting restrictions, but sometimes it seems like it!)
Knowing who you’re dealing with ....................................................
An exporter mustunderstand who he is dealing with at all times. There are
two possible pitfalls:
Shipping to someone on a restricted parties list
Shipping to someone in an embargoed or sanctioned country
In the wake of Sept. 11, countries have put in place additional security mea-
sures to ensure that dangerous goods don’t fall into the hands of terrorist
groups. This has resulted in a profusion of restricted party lists, or individu-
als or groups that can’t have goods shipped to them. The difficulty for busi-
nesses is that there are more than 50 restricted party lists around the world
and some countries — such as the United States — have more than one list
for different agencies. To make matters more confusing, these lists are regu-
larly updated, so keeping on top of changes can be extremely hard. Third-
party companies monitor and update these lists, which can be purchased
and downloaded for use with global trade software.
150 Part II: Diving into GRC
