Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilShow full title

Article 118 Defective goods or goods not complying with the terms of the contract

1. An amount of import duty shall be repaid or remitted if the notification of the customs debt relates to goods which have been rejected by the importer because, at the time of release, they were defective or did not comply with the terms of the contract on the basis of which they were imported.

Defective goods shall be deemed to include goods damaged before their release.

2. Notwithstanding paragraph 3, repayment or remission shall be granted provided the goods have not been used, except for such initial use as may have been necessary to establish that they were defective or did not comply with the terms of the contract and provided they are taken out of the customs territory of the Union.

3. Repayment or remission shall not be granted where:

(a) the goods, before being released for free circulation, were placed under a special procedure for testing, unless it is established that the fact that the goods were defective or did not comply with the terms of the contract could not normally have been detected in the course of such tests;

(b) the defective nature of the goods was taken into consideration in drawing up the terms of the contract, in particular the price, before the goods were placed under a customs procedure involving the incurrence of a customs debt; or

(c) the goods are sold by the applicant after it has been ascertained that they are defective or do not comply with the terms of the contract.

4. Instead of being taken out of the customs territory of the Union, and upon application by the person concerned, the customs authorities shall authorise that the goods be placed under the inward processing procedure, including for destruction, or the external transit, the customs warehousing or the free zone procedure.