The Thirteenth Arbitration Court of Appeals (St. Petersburg) has upheld the decision of the Murmansk Oblast Arbitration Court dated 27 February of this year on the deeming unlawful of the refusal of the Murmansk Customs-House to release containers belonging to OJSC TransContainer.

We would remind readers that a new Customs Code of the Russian Federation, which does not include a definition of the term “container”, has been in force since 2004. Therefore, containers are regarded by individual customs-houses as goods which must undergo separate customs declaration.

In this connection, around 100 containers belonging to OJSC TransContainer and over 30 containers owned by other companies have accumulated in the port of Murmansk since February 2006.

“Since the entry into force of the new Customs Code, containers have started being regarded by certain customs authorities as “goods”. In particular, the Murmansk Customs-House has demanded that containers undergo customs clearance as “goods”, i.e., that separate freight customs declarations be drawn up for the containers in which export freight was imported. The customs authorities have thus introduced their own interpretation of the law, by changing the status of containers,” explained Alexander Kvitko, Legal Advisor to the General Director of OJSC TransContainer.

This approach to the concept of a “container” does not comply with the standards and principles of international law or Russian law, and increases the cost of the services connected to the transportation of freight, as well as the period of time required to deliver freight in connection with the hours of work required to carry out the additional customs clearance. In addition, it places owners of Russian containers on an unequal footing with foreign owners on the container transportation market, since the foreign containers are exempt from all customs duties under the Convention on Temporary Imports (Istanbul, 1990).

TransContainer applied to the Murmansk Oblast Arbitration Court, which deemed the refusal to release the containers unlawful and obligated the Murmansk Customs-House to return to the company its containers without undergoing additional customs declaration.

“The customs people filed an appeal, but the court, having considered the arguments of OJSC TransContainer and of the Murmansk Customs-House, concluded that our company had acted in accordance with RF law, and the court confirmed the validity of the previously issued court decision,” Alexander Kvitko commented.