Judgment of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 3 February 2021 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Finanzgericht Düsseldorf – Germany) – Rottendorf Pharma GmbH v Hauptzollamt Bielefeld

(Case C-92/20) ¹

(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Customs Union – Community Customs Code – Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 – Second indent of Article 239(1) – Reimbursement of lawfully collected customs duties – Special situation – Issuance of an authorisation for release for free circulation – Invalidation of the authorisation and issue of an authorisation for inward processing with retroactive effect – Re-exporting goods outside of the EU territory – Failure to present goods to customs)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Finanzgericht Düsseldorf

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Rottendorf Pharma GmbH

Defendant: Hauptzollamt Bielefeld

Operative part of the judgment

The second indent of Article 239(1) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 of 12 October 1992 establishing the Community Customs Code must be interpreted as meaning that, first, an economic operator may claim repayment of the customs duties which it has paid only where that operator is in a special situation and there is no manifest negligence or deception on its part and, second, that the fact that the goods concerned were re-exported to a third country without entering the economic network of the European Union is insufficient to establish that that economic operator was in such a special situation. The same conclusion applies where the conduct giving rise to the imposition of the customs duties concerned was caused by an error in the information contained in the computer system of that economic operator, since that error could have been avoided if the same economic operator had taken account of the conditions contained in the authorisation granted to it.

____________

¹ OJ C 201, 15.6.2020.