Success

September 2021, attorney Dmytro Chuguienko successfully defended the Client in the administrative case for violation of customs rules in the Kyiv Court of Appeal. As a result, the Customs' office appeal has been denied, and the decision of the Solomyansky District Court of Kyiv to return sized funds was left in force.

The situation arose in May 2021 with a Client who arrived in Ukraine from Israel. To pass through customs control an Israeli citizen chose a channel marked with green symbols - the “green corridor”, thereby, under clause 5 of Art. 366 of the Customs Code of Ukraine was considered as a citizen's statement that the goods moved across the customs border of Ukraine are not subject to written declaration, taxation, customs duties, statutory prohibitions, and/or restrictions on the import into the customs territory of Ukraine or export outside the such territory and shall bear evidence to legally significant facts.

Customs officers conducted an oral questioning of the Client. When asked an Israeli citizen told the customs officer that he was moving about 10,000 euros across the customs border of Ukraine. After the interview, he was proposed to present all cash to the Customs office. The client gave out money of 9,625 euros and 3,056 US dollars, located in one of the compartments of his passenger's bag.

It is worth saying that the cash was moved without any signs of concealment and all currency belonged to the Client.

Thus by choosing the channel which is marked with green symbols - "Green Corridor" and not submitting a customs declaration, the Client violated the requirements of Article 471 of the Customs Сode of Ukraine. Considering this, a citizen of Israel was allowed to pass through customs only 9625 euros and 456 US dollars (equivalent to 9999 euros) and a protocol on violation of customs regulations under Art. 471 of the Customs Code of Ukraine has been drawn up. Customs officers confiscated the rest of the funds in the amount of 2,600 US dollars.

Although the Solomyansky District Court of Kyiv found the Client guilty, it was decided to return the withdrawn funds.

At the same time, the Kyiv customs office did not agree with this court decision and filed an appeal.

In order to protect the rights and interests of the Client in the court of appeal, the attorney collected evidence confirming that the funds imported into Ukraine were received by the Client legally, namely it was the payment of his salaries, and confiscation is an excessive financial burden for him.

The Kyiv Court of Appeal assessed the evidence presented by the attorney as adequate, appropriate, reliable, and sufficient to stay in force the district court order.

But the story does not end there, because there are a lot of procedural bureaucratic issues that need to be resolved in the interim between issuing the decision of the court and its fulfillment.

It turned out that it is not so easy to force The Customs office to return the seized funds under a court decision. To return the withdrawn funds attorney Dmytro Chuguienko and his team, had to submit a decent amount of documents, make dozens of calls, go to the customs office on the territory of the airport "Boryspil" and go through the rest of the "9 circles of bureaucratic hell". It took about a month in total. But, despite this, the Client's joy from returning seized funds overlapped all the negative experience of the bureaucracy of this procedure.