European Commission accuses UK over Chinese clothing imports
14/03/2018
According to the report, the Commission sent a formal notice to the UK government on March 8, informing it that is must pay customs duties lost on undervalued Chinese textiles and clothing brought into the European Union via the UK between November 2011 and December 2017.
In a statement, the European Commission said: “Despite having been informed of the risks of fraud relating to the importation of textiles and footwear originating in the People's Republic of China since 2007, and despite having been asked to take appropriate risk control measures, the United Kingdom failed to take action to prevent the fraud”.
The notice comes following a three-year investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud office (OLAF), which found the UK failed to act on repeated warnings that some Chinese importers were avoiding customs duties on clothing imports by using false invoices and mis-declaring the value of items.
OLAF passed its findings on to the European Commission and recommended that the EU recover the lost duties, estimated to be almost €2 billion.
The UK now has two months to respond, after which EU officials will take a decision. The matter can be referred to the European Court of Justice should the UK not comply with this decision.
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