European Court of Justice

ECJ ruling (Case C-570/24, Transilvania Master Insolv IPURL) regarding liability of a legal person for excise duties for missing quantities of alcohol

Customs – ECJ ruling in Case C-570/24 - (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Excise duties – Directive 2008/118/EC – Article 8(1)(a)(i) and (2) – Person liable to pay excise duty – Quantity of ethyl alcohol missing from a company’s business assets – Managing director of a company guilty of embezzlement and of a failure to make entries in the accounts – Determination of the person liable to pay excise duty – More than one person liable – Effect of a judgment of a criminal court delivered in respect of civil matters, finding the managing director solely liable)

The ECJ rules that:

1. Article 8(1)(a)(i) of Council Directive 2008/118/EC must be interpreted as meaning that a legal person which, in order to obtain authorisation as a tax warehousekeeper, has been engaged in the production of ethyl alcohol under suspension of excise duty and from whose business assets a certain quantity of that alcohol has been found to be missing is covered by the concept of "person liable" to pay that duty within the meaning of that provision.
2. Article 8(1)(a)(i) and (2) of Directive 2008/118 must be interpreted as meaning that, for the purposes of determining the person or persons liable to pay the excise duty that has become chargeable within the meaning of those provisions, a national court is not bound by the civil-law element of the operative part of a judgment of a criminal court by which a natural person, who is an employee or manager of a legal person, has been definitively held solely liable for the damage caused to the State budget on account of the misappropriation of a quantity of alcohol stored with that legal person under a duty suspension arrangement.

AG Opinion ECJ (Case C-498/24, Çolakoğlu Metalurji and C499/24, Ereğli Demir ve Çelik Fabrikaları) regarding appeals on anti-dumping measures for steel products

Customs – ECJ ruling in Case C-498/24 and C-499/24 - (Appeals – Dumping – Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1100 – Imports of certain hot-rolled flat products of iron, non-alloy or other alloy steel originating in Türkiye – Definitive anti-dumping duties – Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 – Import duties – Calculation of the dumping margin – Article 2(10)(j) – Foreign currency risk hedging contract)

The AG advises as follows:

• In light of all the foregoing considerations, I propose that the Court dismiss the fourth ground of appeal in Case C 498/24 P (Çolakoğlu Metalurji and Çolakoğlu Dış Ticaret v Commission) and the sixth ground of appeal in Case C 499/24 P (Ereğli Demir ve Çelik Fabrikaları and Others v Commission).

General Court ruling (Case T-690/23, Kolinsen) regarding which member state is authorised to impose an excise duty assessment

Excise duties – General Court ruling in Case T-690/24 - ( Reference for a preliminary ruling – Taxation – Excise duties – Directive 2008/118/EC – Article 10(2) and (4) of Directive 2008/118 – Occurrence of an irregularity during a movement of excise goods – Movement of goods under a duty suspension arrangement – Detection of the irregularity during the movement – Quantity of missing goods detected when unloading the means of transport)

The General Court rules that:

• Article 10(2) of Council Directive 2008/118/EC must be interpreted as applying to a situation in which excise goods moving under a duty suspension arrangement have not arrived in their entirety at their destination and the missing quantity of goods has not been detected until the means of transport containing those goods was unloaded, so that, since the irregularity within the meaning of that provision is thus deemed to have occurred in the State of arrival, excise duty is chargeable there.

AG Opinion General Court (Case T-589/24, A-GmbH) regarding partial exemption import duties outward processing

Customs – AG Opinion General Court T-589/24 - (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Customs union – Customs code – Regulations (EEC) No 2913/92 and (EU) No 952/2013 – Outward processing procedure – Partial relief from import duties – Placement for export at a customs office not designated in the authorisation and located in a Member State other than that which granted the authorisation – Crude groundnut oil)

The AG advises as follows:

1. In a situation characterised by placements of Union goods for export to a third country in order to be processed there, carried out until 30 April 2016, at an office of entry in a Member State whose customs authority has not given its prior agreement to the adoption of a single authorisation to use the outward processing procedure:

• Article 85 CCC, read in conjunction with the fifth indent of Article 84(1) CCC and Article 500(1) Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2454/93 must be interpreted as precluding the partial relief from import duty under the outward processing procedure, provided for in Article 145(1) CCC;
• Article 150(2) CCC must be interpreted as meaning that it is not applicable.

1. 2. Article 211(1), first subparagraph, point (a) UCC, read in conjunction with the second subparagraph of that provision, must be interpreted as:

• precluding the partial relief from import duties provided for in Article 259(1) UCC where temporary export goods are placed, from 1 May 2016, under the outward processing procedure at an office of placement not designated in the authorisation to use that particular customs procedure.
• Article 86(6) UCC must be interpreted as meaning that:
• it is not applicable by analogy where a customs debt is incurred on the basis of Article 77(1)(a) UCC.

AG Opinion General Court (Case T-653/24, Accorinvest) regarding a French transmission levy which does not qualify as "other indirect tax"

Excise duties – AG Opinion General Court T-653/24  - ( Reference for a preliminary ruling – Harmonisation of fiscal legislation – Excise duty – Directive 2008/118/EC – Electricity – Other indirect taxes – Passing on the tax to the consumer)

The AG advises that:

• Article 1(2) of Council Directive 2008/118/EC must be interpreted as meaning that a contribution, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which is levied on the basis of the use of electricity transmission and distribution networks, is based on the fixed component of the standing charge for use of the public electricity networks and is passed on to the consumer by means of a legal mechanism, does not fall within the concept of "other indirect taxes" within the meaning of that provision.