Customs Lawyer

Today, many importers face a situation when customs officers make a decision on the customs value adjustment (CVA) as a result of the inspection, implying accrual and charge of additional cash of the cargo owner. If the foreign trade participant does not agree with the decision, he is entitled to apply to the regional customs administration and challenge the customs value adjustment in pre-trial order. An experienced customs lawyer of Solid Logistics will help resolving such dispute in your favor.

The cargo is labeled with one of three marks during document inspection: cargo value confirmation, instruction to conduct an audit – additionally check the cargo value, and increase the customs fee (CVA). Customs can collect CVA from any cargo, regardless of its real value and customs declaration data.

What to do in case of CVA?

There are two ways to repay CVA: by bringing claims against the customs in the pre-trial order or acting through the court. Let's consider both cases.

If the customs dispute is resolved in court, you have to pay the state fee, and also prepare and file a statement of claim. Usually this requires a hired lawyer. However, uncovered costs for its services arise, and you will have to pay regardless of the court decision, so you need to find funds therefore. Many lawyers promise that such costs will be recovered from the defendant. But in practice the court charges not more than 5-10 thousand rubles from the state acting as a defendant to pay for legal services; and this happens far from always.

The entire process, from the beginning of drafting the claim and until the court decision, takes about a year on average. That is, you will get a court decision (not even money) only in a year! If the court makes a decision in your favor, the customs returns CVA after a while. At the same time, as our practice shows, recently courts are more likely in favor of the customs when resolving customs disputes and refuse to return CVA to foreign trade participants.

After the court, whatever the outcome is, a foreign trade participant gets into the so called customs’ category of “prone to disputes”, subject to measures of increased control.

Now let's consider CVA appeals in pre-trial order.

In order to file a claim with the customs administration, you do not have to pay any state duties. It takes 1 month since the starting point of drafting documents until the decision thereupon. That is, if the decision is positive, CVA will be returned already within a month.

You pay for the services of a customs lawyer, who will help you resolving a customs dispute in a pre-trial order, in case of a positive decision only and at the expense of money already returned.

Another advantage of such a settlement: after this precedent, the customs will not further apply CVA to the foreign trade participant’s cargoes that appeared in the claim considered.

At the same time, even you fail to resolve the dispute in the customs administration, this does not deprive the foreign trade participant of the right to appeal to the court. The law allows doing this within three years after CVA was paid.

A competent strategy and correctly drafted documents with references to customs regulations will help ensuring CVA return in pre-trial order. An experienced customs lawyer of Solid Logistics will protect your interests.

Here are three good reasons to contact Solid Logistics for assistance in pre-trial resolution of the dispute over CVA.

First, unlike most other lawyers, our specialist is a customs representative. A common lawyer or an adviser can bring a claim prepared by him and leave him at the customs’ checkpoint. The customs lawyer of Solid Logistics can go inside, behind the gates, where circumstances require going.

Second, a legal counsel considers the case only from the outside; he can assess the issue only by relying upon the applicable legislation of the Russian Federation. While the customs lawyer of Solid Logistics will know the situation from the inside, using our insider channels. This allows properly building a line of defense. Our customs lawyer will clearly understand whether it makes sense to spend time on pre-trial proceedings, and will deliver this information to the customer.

And third, if a common lawyer requests money even at the stage of drafting a claim, we consider our work done only when we manage to return CVA to a foreign trade participant. Therefore, you pay to the customs lawyer only at the expense of the money returned.

The customs lawyer of Solid Logistics will become your reliable assistant in resolving disputes with the customs!