- The Swiss Federal Administrative Court upheld post-clearance customs duties and import taxes on an agricultural services company and its managing director for using the company’s import licenses/quota shares to import breeding animals for third-party buyers at the reduced quota tariff rate.
- The court held that the company was not the true “importer” because it only provided logistics and administration; the actual Swiss buyers were the importers, but they lacked the required general import license (GEB) to access the lower quota tariff.
- As a result, the imports were subject to the higher out-of-quota tariff, and using the company’s quota shares to obtain the lower rate constituted objective customs evasion, regardless of intent.
- The company and its managing director were found jointly and severally liable for the full customs/tax shortfall because they orchestrated the shipments and instructed the customs declarations.
- Good-faith and reliance arguments were rejected; the court said there was no binding customs assurance and the retroactive correction to the higher tariff was legally required.
Source: bvger.weblaw.ch
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
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