Aspectum successfully appealed a claim in the Arbitration Court for the St.-Petersburg and Leningrad region to challenge the decision of the Baltic Customs (Turukhtanny Customs Post) on the adjustment of the goods customs value (КТС) (case A56-71254/2016).
According to the June 22, 2016 decision of the Customs Authority, the customs value (ТС) of the goods declared by our client in the Declaration of goods (ДТ) were adjusted by Customs because the cost of the declared goods was lower than what Customs determined to be the average price of the same class goods. This decision of the Customs Authority was based on their valuation method of “operational monitoring analysis of the goods”.
However, the Customs Authority did not consider that the valuation system for imported goods for customs purposes shall be based on their actual value according to article VII of GATT 1994. This is defined as the price at which such or similar goods are sold or offered for sale on the open market.
Given these provisions, the price of the imported goods cannot be rejected by the Customs Authority solely on the grounds that the declared lower value of the goods are not in comparison with the prices of their valuation sheet due to differences from the price levels established in internal trade.
Aspectum. lawyers convinced the Court that all necessary and sufficient evidences of an actual customs value had previously been disclosed by our client during the customs procedures. The Customs Authority could not prove the opposite, and did not file a claim to apply the statute of limitations period.
The Baltic customs decision was revoked by the third court session by the order of the North-West Customs Department as part of a review initiated by the Customs Authority itself.
After consultation with our client, the claim was withdrawn due to the revocation of the Customs decision and the claim withdrawal was accepted by the Court.
