CBP Reports Problems with Prior Notice Confirmations, Outlines Contingency Options
There's a problem with the link between the Automated Commercial System (ACS) and the Food and Drug Administration's Operational and Administrative System for Import Support (OASIS) system, said CBP in a CSMS message (here). As a result, submitters who filed via Automated Broker Interface/ACS are prevented from receiving prior notice confirmation and CBP is prevented from auto-checking the prior notice confirmation for ABI/ACS filers, the agency said.
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CBP provided some contingency procedures to deal with the outages. "If prior notice has not already been submitted, ABI filers may decide to wait out the ACS/OASIS Interface downtime if they determine that the timeliness of prior notice will not be adversely affected," said CBP. "Filers who choose this option should understand that they remain responsible" under statute and "the prior notice interim final rule for filing timely prior notice." Filers may alternatively "submit prior notice via PNSI, in which case the prior notice confirmation number must accompany the article of food," the agency said.. "If prior notice is submitted through PNSI, FDA and CBP recommend that the submitter present the PNSI confirmation page, including the prior notice confirmation number and time stamp, to CBP officers for cargo release. If the PNSI confirmation page is not presented, this may delay cargo release while the CBP officer, without being able to access OASIS, contacts FDA for verification of the prior notice confirmation number(s) and time of submission. If prior notice has already been submitted via ABI/ACS prior to the interface outage, and confirmation has already been received, the submitter may proceed with prior notice using the standard process."
If prior notice was already "submitted via ABI/ACS and confirmation has not been received prior to the interface outage, FDA and CBP recommend that, rather than resubmitting via PNSI, filers should provide to CBP officers, an endorsed copy of the ABI transmission or some other evidence adequate to show that prior notice has been submitted via ABI/ACS at the time of cargo release, it said. "Once the interface is functioning again, there will likely be a backlog of entries for FDA to process which could take several hours," CBP said. :Do not resend any entries via ABI which have already been transmitted as this will cause issues with the entries."