Case C-62/05 P: Appeal brought on 11 February 2005 by Nordspedizionieri di Danielis Livio & C. in liquidation against the judgment delivered on 14 December 2004 by the Fifth Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities in Case T-332/02 between Nordspedizionieri and Others and the Commission of the European Communities
Date: 2005-04-02
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: General Court (EU), action for annulment (EU), customs duties, customs profession, fraud, tobacco, transport document

C 82/20

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

2.4.2005

Appeal brought on 11 February 2005 by Nordspedizio-
nieri di Danielis Livio & C. in liquidation against the judg-
ment delivered on 14 December 2004 by the Fifth
Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the European
Communities in Case T-332/02 between Nordspedizionieri
and Others and the Commission of the European Commu-
nities

13 of Regulation (EEC) No 1430/79, submitting that
they
could not be liable for the customs duties because in this case
there are ‘special circumstances’ exempting Nordspedizionieri
from the obligation to pay those duties. They claim that they
were entitled to rely on the documents (commercial and trans-
port) presented to them by the driver of the lorry at the time of
the customs declaration, from which it appeared that the loads
were of cardboard boxes.

(Case C-62/05 P)

(2005/C 82/41)

(Language of the case: Italian)

An appeal against the judgment delivered on 14 December
2004 by the Fifth Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities in Case T-332/02 between Nordspedi-
zionieri and Others and the Commission of
the European
Communities was brought before the Court of Justice of the
European Communities on 11 February 2005 by Nordspedizio-
nieri and Others, represented by G. Leone, lawyer.

The appellant claims that the Court should:

1 – Annul the contested decision of the Commission of the
European Communities of 28 June 2002 (file REM 1401),
notified on 2 September 2002, by which it found the
remission of import duties to be unjustified, and declare
on the contrary that in the present case the remission is
justified pursuant to Article 13(1) of Regulation (EEC) No
1430/79 (1) on the basis of special circumstances in which
no negligence or deception may be attributed to the
appellants;

2 – Order the Commission to pay the costs at first instance

and on appeal.

The special situation permitting remission arises from the fact
that the customs agent is unable to inspect the contents of
lorries which ‘legitimately’ cross the border between Italy and
Yugoslavia and moreover that, in the present case, the docu-
mentation appeared to be in order so that the loads cleared
customs under the ‘fast track’ customs procedure.

The applicants further point to the fulfilment in the present
case of the other requirement of Article 13 that there be no
‘negligence’ or ‘deception’, in that the T1 declaration was drawn
up on the basis of the information given in the commercial
and transport documentation.

Lastly,
in the application to the Court of First Instance, the
appellants pleaded in the alternative the application of Article
8(1)(b) of Regulation EEC No 2144/87 (2), which excludes the
payment of customs duties on those goods which were seized
and then confiscated.

By judgment of 14 December 2004, the Fifth Chamber of the
Court of First Instance dismissed the action in its entirety,
holding that there were no ‘special circumstances’, and there-
fore leaving aside the question whether or not in the present
case there was no ‘negligence or deception’.

Pleas in law and main arguments:

The appellants, who are customs agents,
issued in October
1992 two T1 Community transit declarations that loads origin-
ating in Yugoslavia and destined for Spain contained cardboard
boxes. The Italian customs authorities requested the appellants
to pay the customs duties chargeable on the two loads in ques-
tion declaring that the loads did not contain boxes but cigar-
ettes.

including the fact

first
The appeal restates the same arguments advanced at
instance,
in the present case there
that
appears to have been an infringement of the 1965 Belgrade
Agreement on mutual administrative assistance between Italy
and Yugoslavia, which obliges the Yugoslav customs authorities
to notify the Italian customs authorities of the transit of fiscally
sensitive goods (such as cigarettes) with reference to the two
lorries in question; a third lorry was stopped and the goods
seized thanks to the warning received (albeit late) by the Italian
customs from their Yugoslav counterparts.

The appellants brought legal proceedings, which they lost, and
then applied to the Commission for remission of the customs
duties, which it refused, holding that the appellants did not
satisfy the prescribed requirements.

(1) OJ 1979 L 175 of 12.07.1979, p. 1.
(2) OJ 1987 L 201 of 22.07.1987, p. 15.

The appellants therefore brought an action before the Court of
First Instance of the European Communities based on Article