Interesting “URVEST” projects in 2013-2014

Denial of providing tariff preferences:

The case on appeal of the decision of the customs authority to refuse to provide tariff allowances in respect of LLC “Elit-Profi”.

The main activity of the Client is the import of goods to Russia and its clearance on its own behalf for subsequent sale. The customer has the following problem. He acquired in his own name and made customs clearance for free circulation in Russian of the goods – labels for sparkling wines produced in Ukraine. During the customs clearance of goods client said about his allowances for payment of customs duties by the country of origin (Ukraine – 0%), and got it.

The customs authority inspected the goods. As a result of checking the customs authority has established that one of the documents confirming the country of origin, autorising to receive benefits was issued in violation of the law – there was no seal of producer organization.

Following the checking by the customs authority, it was decided to deprive the client of the right to allowances and to collect from him not paid extra customs fees.

The Client turned to us for help after the decision to refuse to provide tariff preferences was made.

After studying the materials of the case (Dmitri Ivanov), it was found that the violation of the order of registration of documents took place at the time of submitting the declaration and has not been seen by inspector of the customs authority in a timely manner. The customs authority did not take any actions to confirm the country of origin of goods.

Based on the above it was agreed with the Client the following defense position – to appeal the decision of customs authorities to cancel the allowances in the court based on the principles of law – the fact that the actual place of origin is Ukraine, which means that in fact a violation has not been admitted, the state’s interests are not suffered, there was a negligence on the part of a customs authorities.

An application was prepared and submitted to the Court of First Instance.

As a result of this work, the Court of First Instance accepted the position of the company and pointed out that in fact there was negligence on the part of the customs authority. The court also took into account the documents certifying the country of origin of the goods and declared the decision to cancel the customs allowances illegal.

(The case against LLC “Elit-Profi” initiated by Pskov Customs, case in the Court of Arbitration of the Pskov region №A52-1364 / 2013).