Customs lawyer

Customs law is quite complex to understand. That is why we provide assistance with customs law assistance.

Liability for committing a significant number of customs offenses provides for fairly severe sanctions, which leads to a significant demand for the involvement of a customs lawyer to conduct cases and represent interests before state authorities.

The competence of a customs lawyer is quite broad, the most popular is to engage the latter for the following types of services:

• Development and legal audit of foreign economic activity contracts;
• Consulting on issues of conducting foreign economic activity, registration of intellectual property objects in the customs register, prosecution for customs offenses, declaration of goods for commercial purposes, humanitarian aid, etc.;
• Representation in customs authorities and courts.

When do you need the help of a customs lawyer?

Most often, clients seek the help of a customs lawyer when they need to appeal a decision to adjust the customs value, protocols on customs offenses, or support in criminal proceedings.

Assistance from a customs lawyer in disputes with customs

The court is not the only body authorized to consider cases of violation of customs rules. The legislator in Article 522 of the Customs Code of Ukraine divided the articles providing for the composition of a customs offense into 2 categories: cases that are authorized to be considered by customs authorities and cases that are considered by the court.

The legislator provides for the possibility of pre-trial settlement of a customs dispute directly with the customs authority, moreover, establishes a presumption of the legality of the declarant's actions, unless the customs authority proves otherwise. However, as practice shows, such settlements rarely end in success for clients due to the formal approach of the customs authorities and subsequently end in an appeal to the court.

Assistance from a lawyer in customs matters in court

As already partially mentioned, the most popular appeals are appeals against decisions on customs value adjustment. This category of cases is subject to consideration under the rules of administrative proceedings, as an appeal against other actions or inaction of customs representatives. Therefore, an experienced lawyer will help you analyze the validity of the decision on customs value adjustment and the prospects for considering your case in court. The fact is that the success of the case depends on the correctness of the execution of shipping documentation, compliance with the applicable INCOTERMS rules and compliance of the actual relations between the counterparties with the provisions of the foreign economic activity contract concluded between them.

It is the customs lawyer who will be able to analyze your situation in light of the norms of current legislation and relevant case law (it is worth noting that the practice of the Supreme Court, which is taken into account when considering cases by the courts of first and appellate instance, is very dynamic and changeable).

In addition to disputes regarding the adjustment of customs value, a customs lawyer will be able to assist in appealing protocols regarding violation of customs rules. In fact, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into the territory of Ukraine, a significant number of punctures have arisen due to incorrect determination of the customs regime when transporting humanitarian aid.

Therefore, when considering cases of violation of customs rules by the court, it is advisable to enlist the support of a specialist who will have in-depth knowledge of the norms of procedural and substantive law, and have experience in the specified category of cases.