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Procedural fairness, forced labour, export control measures and classification of goods, royalty fee and other valuation-related issues, the liability of a customs broker (representative), tariff … classification and the main feature of a product - insights on these topics were shared during the 11th Authors’ Meeting. We invite you to learn which court cases were selected and which aspects were paid attention to by experts from various countries – the United States of America, Ukraine, France, Bulgaria, Israel, and Lithuania.

Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) took another decision regarding customs valuation and adjustment of transaction value. In this decision CJEU analysed legal importance of compensation … paid for the right to exclusively distribute goods. CJEU concluded that such compensation was the condition of sale and thus must be reflected in the customs value of goods. The fact that compensation was agreed on in a separate contract (not in a sale-purchase agreement) and that it was limited in time did not change conclusions of the CJEU. It is yet another signal for the importers to carefully examine all the payments between them and the seller and evaluate their possible influence on customs value of imported goods.

On 25 September 2020, the European Commission has published a new version of the Guidance on Customs Valuation. Although this document is not legally binding, it is considered an important tool … for the interpretation of the EU customs legislation. The guidance aims to ensure a common understanding between customs and economic operators and to provide a tool to facilitate the correct and harmonized application of customs legislation in the Member States. The guidance is expected to be included in the EU Customs Valuation Compendium in 2021.

The goal of the EU law on customs valuation is to introduce a fair, uniform, and neutral system excluding the use of arbitrary or fictitious customs values. The customs value must therefore reflect … the real economic value of an imported product and take into account all of the elements of that product that have economic value. In this article we are going to review how the Bulgarian courts apply the provisions related to customs valuation, more specifically, to the inclusion of royalties in the customs value of the goods.