Data I/O GmbH v Hauptzollamt Hannover.
Date: 2010-05-20
24. It should be recalled that, when the Court is requested to give a preliminary ruling on a matter of tariff classification, its task is to provide the national court with guidance on the criteria the implementation of which will enable the latter to classify the products at issue correctly in the CN, rather than to effect that classification itself, a fortiori since the Court does not necessarily have available to it all the information which is essential in that regard. In any event, the national court is in a better position to do so. However, in order to give the national court a useful answer, the Court may, in a spirit of cooperation with national courts, provide it with all the guidance that it deems necessary (see, inter alia, Case C‑56/08 Pärlitigu  [2009] ECR I‑6719, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).
29. It is appropriate from the outset to recall that, in accordance with the Court’s settled case-law, in the interests of legal certainty and ease of verification, the decisive criterion for the classification of goods for customs purposes is in general to be sought in their objective characteristics and properties as defined in the wording of the relevant heading of the CN and in the section or chapter notes (see, inter alia, Case C‑142/06 Olicom  [2007] ECR I‑6675, paragraph 16; and Case C‑376/07 Kamino International Logistics  [2009] ECR I‑1167, paragraph 31).
30. The explanatory notes drawn up by the Commission as regards the CN and by the World Customs Organisation as regards the HS are an important aid to the interpretation of the scope of the various tariff headings but do not have legally binding force (Case C‑250/05 Turbon International [2006] ECR I‑10531, paragraph 16; and Case C‑173/08 Kloosterboer Services  [2009] ECR I‑5347, paragraph 25).
35. With regard to the concept of ‘data-processing’, first, the first paragraph of Chapter I provides that such processing consists in handling information of all kinds, in pre-established logical sequences and for a specific purpose or purposes. Secondly, in the light both of the general scheme of that explanatory note and its context, it follows that that concept must be understood as involving, in principle, the exploitation of data, such as recording, modifying, storing, converting or publishing that data.
36. It follows that the adapter at issue in the main proceedings, one of whose functions is to record and store data by means of a memory-chip, fulfils the condition set out in Note 5(B)(c) to Chapter 84 of the CN, in so far as it carries out data-processing.
40. First, it is apparent from the case-law of the Court that the word ‘part’, within the meaning of heading 8473 of the CN, implies a whole for whose operation the part is essential ( Kloosterboer Services , paragraph 27 and the case-law cited).
43. It is only where that adapter can be classified neither under heading 8471 nor under heading 8473 of the CN that it would be necessary to consider it to be an ‘electrical apparatus for making connections to or in electrical circuits’ and consequently to fall under heading 8536 of the CN, the wording of which refers, in particular, to ‘electrical apparatus for switching or protecting electrical circuits, or for making connections to or in electrical circuits’.
44. It is apparent from the explanatory notes to the HS concerning Chapter 85 of the CN that, according to the first paragraph of Part A of those notes, that chapter ‘covers all electrical machinery and equipment, other than … machinery and apparatus of a kind covered by Chapter 84, which remains classified there even if electric’. Therefore, the adapter at issue in the main proceedings can be classified under heading 8536 of the CN only if it is not covered by headings 8471 and 8473 thereof.