Aspectum successfully appealed a negligence claim against the Baltic Customs to refund excessive customs duties to the client.
Recognition of the excessive customs duty was a result of another successful case where arguments led by Aspectum were heard in the Arbitration Court on a claim against an unlawful decision issued by the local Customs authorities to adjust the customs value of the goods.
The claim was originally submitted to the Customs authorities but was later dismissed by them which led to a court hearing.
Customs authorities objected to the claim of refund by our client. According to Customs, despite the fact that our client’s right to refund customs duty was ruled by the decision of the Arbitration Court, the customs authorities had legal grounds for leaving our client’s claim without consideration. Customs authorities stated that the lack of a seal on the claim paperwork was the reason of claim dismissal according to clause 4 of Article 147 of the Federal Law “On Customs Regulation”.
The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region agreed with all our arguments and recognized that the claim sent by our client to the customs office was lawful. The court pointed that the customs duty refund claims’ rejection based solely on formal grounds is unacceptable, that such claims shall be considered as a company’s will to interact openly and amicably with the customs authorities and ruled that the Customs must refund excessive duty per Article 147 of Law No. 311-FZ “On Customs Regulation in the Russian Federation” (case No. A56-15181 / 2016).
