Despite increased security, crime is a continuing menace to international trade. Cargo fraud, banking swindles, product counterfeiting, cybercrime, even ship hijackings and piracy are all on the rise.

Fresh from issuing the latest in its benchmark international maritime piracy reports, ICC’s Commercial Crime Service (CCS) plans two special U.S. briefings to help West Coast companies combat this growing threat to legitimate business.

“Exposing the Risks of International Trade Fraud” (San Francisco and Seattle, July 15 and 16), will feature CCS Director Pottengal Mukundan in his only U.S. appearances this year. A former merchant captain, Mr. Mukundan has years of experience helping companies avoid falling victim to the underside of international trade and – for those unlucky companies that do – lending CCS investigatory resources to the task of tracking down the crooks.

Based outside London, CCS helps companies by maintaining databases on criminal methods and activities, carrying out investigations and working with law enforcement agencies. These unique West Coast seminars will address key vulnerabilities in trade, shipping and banking, and suggest ways of countering the threats. They are a must for corporate security officers, lawyers, logistics executives or anyone involved in trade.

à For more information and to register, please visit: Click Here.

Released in May, CCS’s quarterly piracy report showed early signs that positive action taken by India, Malaysia and the Philippines had resulted in vastly decreased attacks for those areas in the first quarter of 2004.

"We would like to see a similar determination and commitment of law resources from law enforcement agencies in those areas where the attacks remain at high levels," said Mr. Mukundan, noting that Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Malacca Straits area all continue to show an alarming rise in the number of attacks at sea.

à More on the piracy report at: Click Here.

USCIB Urges Ratification of Law of the Sea Treaty – USCIB has written to the Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urging that the U.S., at long last, ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.  The U.S. played a leading role in negotiating the convention in the 1970s and early 1980s, and led a successful effort to revise the deep-sea mining provisions of the convention in a manner that meets U.S. interests.  The U.S. signed the Convention in 1994, but has yet to ratify.  You can read the USCIB letter at: Click Here.