The Italian Supreme Court, by decision March 21th, 2019, no. 7973, admitted the claim lodged by Armella & Associati Law Firm against Italian custom Authority, reversing the outcome of the decision issued by the Regional tax court of Aosta, which had instead confirmed the customs assessment.

The lawsuit concerned some import licenses of fruit and vegetables products, which have been proved to be irregular only as a result of some investigation carried out after importation.

The Court set aside the appeal judgement and admitted the preliminary objection concerning the limitations period of the customs verification, stating that the recovery proceedings of the duties, cannot be initiated after the time limit of three years from the date of the import, where the lack of determination of the duties took place due to a criminal act of which has been sent criminal offence report, whithin a period of three years.

The decision follows previous sentences obtained by the Company relating to operations at the customs offices of Trento and Genoa, which led to the cancellation of customs assessments for over 10 million euro.