Vastera Launches New, Enhanced Solution That Helps Companies Capture Significant Duty Savings; New Version Enables Immediate ROI.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 5, 2002

Vastera, Inc. (Nasdaq:VAST), the leading provider of solutions for Global Trade Management (GTM), today announced that it has launched its latest version of Duty Manager, a solution to help companies maximize the significant duty savings achieved by participating in various preferential trade programs such as NAFTA, EU-Mexico Free Trade Agreement and Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).

By offering a stand-alone duty management solution, Vastera has packaged one of its Managed Services offerings in such a way that its clients can now quickly realize the significant benefits associated with trade programs.

According to a recent study by Penn State University, duties can comprise up to 75% of a company's total cost to import goods, excluding freight charges. For companies importing even modest volumes, this cost percentage represents a significant expense. Regional trade pacts such as NAFTA, however, offer importers the opportunity to reduce their duty costs significantly.

Duty costs can be reduced by 50% or more for shipments that qualify for special treatment under these trade pacts.

However, establishing and facilitating duty reduction programs is extremely complex; therefore, many companies elect to forego the available savings. According to a report by industry analyst AMR Research, U.S. importers alone leave over $3 billion worth of duty savings and refunds unclaimed each year simply because they do not have the internal expertise or systems to manage them.

By packaging its extensive trade expertise, proven business processes and industry-leading technology, Vastera can help companies realize the significant duty savings for which they are eligible today, but currently unable to claim. In addition to helping companies realize incremental duty savings, Vastera can improve a company's cash flow by claiming duty preference savings at the moment goods cross the border.

Typically, most businesses claim only 50-60% of preference savings at the time the goods cross the border, which forces them to file, and then wait, for a refund on the remaining portion. The refund process can take as much as a year or more. Vastera's Managed Services offerings enable clients to claim preference savings at the border over 95% of the time.

Utilizing its TradeSphere technology, Vastera's trade experts determine the eligibility of a company's products to qualify or participate in preferential trade programs. This process, called "qualification," provides clients with a comprehensive audit trail for Customs, interfaces with customer systems, and enables tracking and reporting of the transactions.

Vastera not only determines eligibility for existing products and suppliers, but also provides "what-if" sourcing analysis to identify new, cheaper sources of supply.

Once program eligibility has been determined, Vastera's trade professionals continue to leverage their technology and business processes to solicit supplier content information to prove the eligibility of materials and components.

This process, called "solicitation," is an additional legal requirement with which companies must comply when seeking to take advantage of preferential trade programs. Finally, Vastera distributes the relevant preferential program information, gathered during the solicitation process, to those end customers that receive the finished goods.

The distribution enables the customer to leverage the intelligence for their benefit - a significant value-added service.

"Vastera has identified savings we would not have even thought to pursue," said Gail Morin, Senior Manager, Global Trade Compliance, Black & Decker Corporation (US). "They have analyzed and improved our existing processes, which will result in qualification of far more products for NAFTA, improved compliance and the capture of preference savings at the border on over 95% of the transactions. This is savings that Black & Decker would not have otherwise realized due to the required investment in time, skills and technology."

"Identifying the eligibility for - and facilitating participation in - preferential trade programs can be a daunting task, even for those companies with very experienced, in-house trade groups," said Bernie Hart, Vice President, Cross Industry Solutions Development at Vastera. "By packaging our trade expertise, technology and business processes, we can get a company up and running with a duty management program very quickly. The significant duty savings we have been able to drive for our existing Managed Services clients motivated us to break out and package this focused offering for other companies."

About Vastera

Vastera is the leading provider of solutions for Global Trade Management. Its solutions, including modular, web-native applications, trade management consulting and managed services, are designed to streamline the trade functions of global business.

The foundation of these solutions is Global eContent, a comprehensive, rules-based application of country-specific trade and regulatory data, which is maintained and updated daily. Vastera's solutions drive quick, tangible benefits for its clients by accelerating the flow of goods through the global supply chain, and reducing the associated labor costs, third party logistics fees, inventory carrying costs, and duties.

Vastera clients include: Ford, Alcatel, Fonterra, Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks. For more information, please visit www.vastera.com.

This press release includes statements, which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are "forward looking" statements, which are subject to the many risks and uncertainties that exist in Vastera's operations and business environment. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from the expected results and include, but are not limited to, Vastera's limited operating history, history of losses and anticipation of continued losses, potential volatility of quarterly operating results, the ability to successfully implement Vastera's expansion plans, risks related to the Internet, risks related to legal uncertainty and other risks which are set forth in more detail in Vastera's Registration Statement on Form S-1, as amended, as well as other reports and documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.