I study Armella & associateswith the founding partner Sara Armella (pictured), witnessed Stellantis (FCA Italy) in the victory at the First Instance Tax Court of Justice of Savona against the Customs and Monopolies Agency, in a dispute over a review of the assessment regarding customs classification.
The issue originates from the importation of some equipment whose customs classification proposed by Stellantis, according to the Savona Customs, would not have been correct, leading to an official review and the consequent application of sanctions, which were then objected to by the company automotive.
The decision
Specifically, with the ruling of last April 8th n. 79/2024, the judges of the first instance CGT of Savona accepted Stellantis’ appeal and confirmed the illegitimacy of the customs authority’s provision as it was in conflict with the binding opinion, in the form of customs information (ITV), issued to Stellantis by German customs, and therefore the correctness of the customs classification provided by the company.
The principle protected by the ruling is that of the uniform application of customs classification in all states of the European Union in order to avoid unequal treatment from one country to another (in addition to that of legitimate expectations) and the full effectiveness of binding tariff information (ITV ) on the customs classification.
“This ruling follows the path traced by the recent, favorable sentences that we obtained from the CGT of Genoa and Salerno, whereby the official opinion issued by a European customs to an operator can only be valid in all the States of the Union” he commented Sara Armella.
