by ACI Partners

News16 November 20150 comments

Retroactive increase of customs duties paid at customs clearance

ACI Partners attorney-at-law, Stanislav Copetchi, Ph.D, Professor of Law at Moldovan State University, has attended a round table organized on 12 November 2015 by the Legal Resources Centre from Moldova in partnership with USAID with the title “Retroactive increase of customs duties – is the case law uniform?”

 What should you know about this?

 The Customs Code empowers the customs authority to undertake subsequent customs controls of the goods that have already been cleared at customs. The law provides for the legal grounds for such subsequent controls. On many occasions the customs authority decides to increase the customs duties based on such subsequent controls and the companies subjects of such controls choose to challenge in court the decisions whereby they are forced to pay more.

 The LRCM undertook an investigation of the court cases related to retroactive increase of the customs duties by the customs authority. The report which could be accessed at the website of the LRCM indicated that the case law on increase of customs duties is rather inconsistent and not uniform.

 The analysis focused on application of the Article 181/1 para (3) of the Customs code and Recommendation No 65 of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Republic of Moldova. The Recommendation No 65 aimed at uniformisation of the case law in such type of litigation. However, the report of the LRCM showed clearly that the courts including the Supreme Court of Justice still rule differently on similar cases. The round table objective was to highlight the existing problem, propose solutions and bring to public attention the issues raised by the experts.

 Should you require to obtain any additional information on customs regulations in Moldova, please contact our qualified attorneys and consultants.

 Stanislav Copetchi has joined ACI Partners in 2014 to strengthen our Litigation and ADR Departments. Stanislav actively contributes to Commercial Law, Insurance and Public Administration service lines.