Trade Controls and Customs Compliance Policy

Purpose

This policy establishes Westlink Logistics’ commitment to comply with the Australian trade-control laws that govern the international movement of goods — customs, sanctions, defence and strategic goods, biosecurity, and air-cargo security. It sets the governance commitments that the trade-control procedures operationalise, so that the controls discharging Westlink’s obligations are deliberate, documented, and auditable. Several of these obligations carry strict-liability or criminal penalties, including imprisonment; this policy states the standard of conduct Westlink requires of every person who acts on its behalf in arranging international freight.

Scope

This policy applies to all international freight arranged by Westlink — by sea and by air, on both the import and the export leg — whether Westlink acts as forwarder, consolidator, agent, or principal, and to standard published-capability freight as well as project and defence cargo. It binds all directors, officers, managers, workers, and contractors who arrange, screen, classify, declare, accept, or release international consignments on Westlink’s behalf.

Westlink does not accept or arrange the carriage of dangerous-goods-classified cargo (ADG Code, IMDG Code, IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations); such requests are declined and escalated. Container Verified Gross Mass determination is governed by OPS-PRO-003, and records-retention periods by GOV-SCH-001; this policy is read with those documents, not in place of them.

Organisational Context

Westlink Logistics is an asset-light multimodal project-logistics integrator and engineering consultancy serving the defence, mining, and energy sectors across Australia. As a freight forwarder arranging carriage for importers and exporters, Westlink can attract trade-control obligations in its own right — for example as a party causing or receiving an import or export under the Customs Act 1901 (Cth), as an agent of the importer under the Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth), and as a person who supplies or brokers DSGL goods or technology under the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 (Cth). Its defence and project-cargo work places it squarely within the export-control and sanctions regimes, where the principal corporate offences are strict liability and the only defence is a documented, repeatable control.

Policy Statement

Westlink Logistics will arrange international freight only in accordance with Australian trade-control law. Westlink is committed to the following, and will not arrange, load, release, or pay for a consignment where doing so would contravene them:

• Sanctions compliance. Westlink screens every party to a consignment, and the carrying vessel or aircraft, against the DFAT Consolidated List and the applicable sanctioned-country and sanctioned-goods measures before accepting, releasing, or paying for the consignment. Westlink will not make a sanctioned supply, import sanctioned goods, provide a sanctioned service, or deal with or make an asset available to a designated or proscribed person or entity, without a DFAT permit. Westlink recognises that, for a body corporate, the principal offences under the Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011 (Cth) and the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945 (Cth) are strict liability, and that the documented screening record is the due-diligence defence.

• Accurate customs declarations. Westlink ensures that imported and exported goods are correctly entered with the Australian Border Force, with accurate tariff classification, customs value, and country of origin, and that an Authority to Deal exists before goods are loaded for export. Where Westlink is not itself a licensed customs broker, a licensed broker is engaged and recorded. Any preferential-origin claim is substantiated before it is made.

• Prohibited and controlled goods. Westlink does not import or export goods that are prohibited, or that are controlled subject to permission, unless every applicable permission, permit, or condition is held and recorded. This applies to prohibited imports and exports under the Customs Act and its Regulations, and to prohibited or conditionally non-prohibited goods under the Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth).

• Defence and strategic goods controls. Westlink classifies defence, dual-use, and technically sensitive items against the Defence and Strategic Goods List (Part 1 Munitions List, then Part 2 Dual-Use List) before movement, and holds the required permission before any controlled activity: a Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations 1958 reg 13E permission for tangible export, and a Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 permit for intangible supply, publication, or brokering. Access by foreign persons to controlled technology is restricted and logged. The AUKUS and Australian Community exemption is relied on only where Westlink’s entitlement is confirmed with Defence and recorded; until then, consignments are processed under the default permit regime. Westlink flags US-origin defence articles that may remain subject to ITAR re-export and re-transfer controls in addition to Australian law.

• Biosecurity at consignment acceptance. Westlink performs and records a biosecurity assessment for each imported consignment — a BICON lookup on the commodity and its origin, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug seasonal screen, the ISPM-15 wood-packaging check, and the required phytosanitary documentation — and obtains any import permit before arrival. Westlink does not import goods it knows or suspects to be prohibited.

• Air-cargo security and truthful declarations. Where Westlink arranges the carriage of cargo by air, it operates within the regulated air-cargo scheme, handles cargo only through participants of the appropriate status, and ensures cargo travels with an accurate security declaration before it is loaded. Westlink requires every cargo description and clearance declaration given to the Commonwealth or to a regulated participant to be truthful. Knowingly giving false or misleading information or documents is a criminal offence under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) Division 137, and staff must not sign a declaration they are not satisfied is accurate.

Internal Compliance Programme

Westlink maintains an Internal Compliance Programme as the governance wrapper for these commitments. The programme defines who is authorised to make and approve DSGL classifications and the escalation path to a Defence assessment; maintains the permit, brokering, and foreign-national access registers; sets an internal-audit cadence over screening, classification, and permit records with corrective action on findings; and ensures that the records of permitted activities exist and are retrievable so that any regulator demand to produce information or documents can be met. For defence consignments previously handled, a one-off retrospective assurance confirms that the relevant export or import permission existed; going forward, the standing record set and a provenance check at each re-supply satisfy the ongoing obligation.

Training and Awareness

All staff involved in defence-cargo acceptance, customs broker engagement, international freight operations, and overseas communications complete trade-control awareness training appropriate to their role before performing those duties, with refresher training thereafter. Training records are maintained under the Westlink training framework.

Records and Retention

Westlink keeps the records that evidence its trade-control controls — sanctions screening records, customs declarations, DSGL classifications and permits, biosecurity assessments, and air-cargo security declarations — for at least the statutory minimum period. Commercial documents relating to imports and exports are kept for five years (Customs Act 1901 (Cth) s.240), records of permitted defence-trade activities for five years (Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 (Cth) s.58), and air-cargo security declarations for at least ninety days (Aviation Transport Security Regulations 2005 (Cth) reg 4.41H). Retention periods are set centrally in GOV-SCH-001 (Document Retention Schedule); this policy is not to be read as setting a shorter period than the statutory minimum.

Responsibilities

Role	Responsibility
CEO	Approves this policy; accountable for adequate resources and systems for trade-control compliance; receives escalations involving sanctions matches, suspected criminal-liability exposure, or refusal of high-value project or defence cargo.
Operations Manager	Owns the trade-control control framework; final escalation point for declined, held, or ambiguous consignments; approves engagement of licensed customs brokers and biosecurity approved-arrangement providers; chairs the Internal Compliance Programme review.
Trade Compliance Officer	Performs or oversees sanctions screening, DSGL classification, and biosecurity assessment; maintains the permit, classification, and brokering registers; holds the per-consignment compliance record.
Freight Operations staff	Initiate consignment screening at booking; do not release, load, or tender a consignment until the applicable control gates are cleared; refer matches and uncertainties to the Trade Compliance Officer.
Contractors and engaged brokers	Comply with this policy as a condition of engagement; a licensed customs broker lodges declarations where Westlink is not itself licensed and provides classification and valuation advice.

Review

This policy is reviewed annually as part of the management review cycle, or earlier when there is a significant change to the trade-control legislation it relies on (for example a change to the DSGL, the sanctions regulations, or the AUKUS arrangements), to Westlink’s defence or project-cargo activities, or following a regulatory action or a material compliance incident. It is communicated to all relevant workers and is available to the relevant regulator on request.

Applicable Standards and Legislation

• Customs Act 1901 (Cth) (compilation C2026C00161)

• Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations 1958 (Cth) (compilation F2026C00262)

• Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956 (Cth) (compilation F2026C00277)

• Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011 (Cth) (compilation C2024C00138)

• Autonomous Sanctions Regulations 2011 (Cth) (compilation F2025C01175)

• Charter of the United Nations Act 1945 (Cth) (compilation C2021C00518)

• DFAT Consolidated List — persons and entities subject to targeted financial sanctions and travel bans (Australian Sanctions Office)

• Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth) (compilation C2026C00044)

• Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 (Cth) (compilation C2024C00463, post-AUKUS amendments)

• Defence and Strategic Goods List 2024 (Cth) (F2024L01024)

• Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 (Cth) (compilation C2026C00102)

• Aviation Transport Security Regulations 2005 (Cth) (compilation F2026C00282)

• Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) — Schedule, Division 137 (false or misleading information and documents)

• ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems — Requirements

Related Documents

• OPS-PRO-001 International Freight Compliance Procedure

• GOV-SCH-001 Document Retention Schedule

• OPS-PRO-003 VGM and Container Weight Declaration Procedure

• OPS-FRM-001 Project-Cargo Shipper Information Package

• CHT-CHK-001 Charter-Party Engagement Checklist

• QHSE-MAN-001 Westlink Management System Manual