Lawyers of Interlegal defended the client’s interests in the dispute against the Southern Customs Office

On the 30^th of May 2014 the Southern Customs Office of the Ministry of Incomes detained the lot of lanterns carried from China to Transnistria through the Odessa Commercial Sea Port.

 

These goods were declared by the employees of the Ukrainian Transport and Forwarding Company on the grounds of documents submitted by the Customer.

 

During three consecutive customs inspections there were no violations detected but the Southern Customs Office initiated the merchandising expertise in order to establish the code of goods according to the Ukrainian Customs Commodity Classification Codes for Foreign Trade. Having obtained the results of the expertise, the Customs stated that lanterns turned out to be electric shockers, therefore it made up a protocol upon violation of customs regulations according to Article 472 of the Customs Code of Ukraine which provides confiscation of goods and fine in the amount of 100% of the cost thereof.

 

Lawyers from Interlegal managed to prove absence of the elements of violation (subjective aspect) in the declarant’s actions. According to the Malinovskiy District Court Decision dd.  August 7^th, 2014 the case upon bringing the declarant to administrative responsibility was closed and the Southern Customs Office was entitled to return the seized goods.

 

Therefore actions of the Southern Customs Office in respect of groundless detention of goods for more than two months were recognized as unlawful. In case of absence of objective difference between transit of lanterns and electric shockers, these actions incurred damage both to cargo owner due to significant delay in delivery, and to the state due to performance of the expertise and due to costs in favour of court, customs and prosecutor’s offices.

 

Client’s interests were represented by senior lawyer Alexey Remeslo and lawyer Sergey Sushko.