Administrative Monetary Penalty System
C157

Guidelines

Non-compliance occurs when a verification, audit, inspection or examination determines that a company does not make records and documents available to an officer for review purposes.

Applied against the importer.

This penalty is normally applied by a Senior Officer Trade Compliance (SOTC) and approved by the regional Manager, Trade Compliance.

Records and documents can be made available on-site at the company premises, delivered directly to the officer's place of work, or made available at another place as designated by the Minister (Non-Resident Importers may undertake to keep records at another location as provided in the Memorandum D17-1-21).

SOTCs must use discretion when deciding how much time to allow the importer to make records and documents available. Thirty days is considered reasonable for the first request for records and documents and fifteen days for subsequent requests for the same records and documents.

This contravention is subject to graduated penalties and is applied on a per request basis, which will be made in writing and may involve more than one record or document.

Typically, one written request for records and documents would be made per audit, verification, or examination. Subsequent written requests for records and documents will be necessary if some or all of the records and documents requested have not been made available to an officer.

The first contravention is subject to a $600 penalty.

Subsequent requests for records and documents that are not made available will be subject to an escalation of penalty levels on a per request basis.

Second contravention is subject to a $1,200 penalty; third and subsequent contraventions are subject to a $2,400 penalty.

References

Legislation

Customs Act, subsection 40(1)

D-Memo

D17-1-21, Maintenance of Records in Canada by Importers

Other

Imported Goods Records Regulations, section 2