Your trade and customs knowledge
go-to-place

A customs warehouse stored bottled alcohol (vodka). Customs audited the warehouse, took a sample, and found that there was water instead of vodka in the bottles! Customs ordered the warehouse … to pay €308,455 customs debt (import duties and taxes, fines and interest). A dispute arose regarding who must pay the customs debt, as the customs warehouse is not obliged to take samples of the goods. Let's look at the clarification of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (SACL) in this case.

The courts of Lithuania dealt recently with several cases of administrative liability of employees at customs and temporary storage warehouses. Various issues were identified during customs audits: … storage of goods not covered by a customs authorisation, storage of goods at a place not authorised by customs, unloading of goods without customs permit. Let's look at the circumstances that led to the issues, the sanctions imposed on the responsible persons and some of the arguments presented by the parties to the court.