Challenging customs payments, commentary from the managing partner of Iusland for the Publishing House "Business Petersburg"

The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region sided with the Pulkovo Customs in a major dispute over 806.9 million rubles in customs duties.

Le Monlid LLC did not include in the declared customs value of goods the amount of license fees for the use of the Leroy Merlin and Leroy Merlin trademarks.

In 2022, Pulkovo customs conducted a desk audit and its result was a decision to make changes to the information declared by the company when declaring the goods, and an additional charge of 806.9 million rubles in customs duties.

In the arbitration court, the applicant referred to the principle of exhaustion of the exclusive right to a trademark, but customs managed to prove that license payments made for trademarks should be included in the customs value of the goods. “Collection of license payments as additional charges under Article 40 of the Customs Code of the EAEU is an established judicial practice. In this regard, the court’s decision does not form any new approach,” says Elena Legashova, managing partner of Iusland law office.

Elena also noted that in the event of an appeal, the prospect of cancellation is low: “The only clue is if the court incorrectly assessed specific evidence or did not evaluate it. But this is not clear from the text of the decision."

Full text of the article at the link https://www.dp.ru