Confrontation between customs and shipping company, comment from Managing Partner Elena Legashova to Delovoi Peterburg.

The St. Petersburg shipping company BF Tanker won a dispute with Murmansk and St. Petersburg customs for almost 300 million rubles.

The dispute was based on different evaluative opinions about the work carried out on the ship to install a ballast water treatment system (WTP). Customs officers regarded these works as modernization of the vessel, while the shipowner considered them just repairs.

According to the managing partner of the Iusland law office, Elena Legashova, this case is interesting because the decision expresses the court’s position on several key arguments at once: what is modernization and how is it different from repairs, how payments should be calculated in case of processing in violation of the requirements procedures.

"Unlike modernization and major repairs, which require placing the vessel under the processing procedure outside the customs territory, current repairs and maintenance operations in accordance with the provisions of Article 277 of the EAEU Customs Code (conditions for use outside the customs territory of the Union) are allowed in relation to temporarily exported transport means of international transportation,” says Elena Legashova.

During the trial, a forensic examination was carried out: the installation of the system was not an upgrade, but a repair operation, and this became the main argument in favor of the plaintiff.

The article is here https://www.dp.ru