Transport / Custom


Our expertise

We offer transport professionals a complete range of services, including assistance with transport-related contracts and clauses. Our lawyers, who combine extensive skills in the various areas of law relevant to the national and international carriage of goods (road, sea, rail, and air transport law, transport insurance law, etc.), are furthermore familiar with the field’s common practices (logistics, warehousing, freight forwarding, handling and stevedoring, vehicle leasing, etc.).

We have also developed an additional expertise as customs law advisors in order to guide clients through applicable customs legislation and ready them for customs checks. Where necessary, we represent clients before the French and EU courts in civil and criminal matters.

What we do

Transport law

- We represent loaders, insurance companies, carriers, shipping companies, freight forwarders, both French and foreign (mainly German), before the judicial and arbitration courts (CAMP, ICC, etc.).

- We draft, negotiate, and revise carriage, forwarding, logistics, insurance, and vehicle leasing contracts and we draw up specific transport-related clauses.

- We pursue transport-related debt collection or compensation claims (termination of business relationships) and we conduct arrest proceedings.

International customs law

- EU customs law

- Customs duties (levies, credits, dealing with the authorities)

- Antidumping duties

- Tariff description-, origin-, and value-related litigation

- Special procedures: storage (customs warehousing and free zones), specific use (temporary admission and end-use), processing (inward and outward processing)

Domestic customs law

- Indirect taxation (alcohol, tobacco, etc.) and stock accounts

- Exchange control and declaration requirement

- Counterfeits

With their combined skills, our lawyers assist clients at all stages of their customs-related disputes. We negotiate with the customs authorities, we look for settlement opportunities (especially with the help of the CCFDL), and we conduct litigation before the civil and criminal courts.


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Among our files

Transport

- Representation of a German insurance company for a direct action against a French loader resulting in a ruling that established the conflict of law rules for the direct action of victims against liability insurers

- Counsel to a tobacco manufacturer and its insurer in a court case against a railway company that ended in the railway company being ordered to reimburse the duties paid to the customs authorities by the manufacturer following the theft of goods during the transport (COTIF, the Bern convention, was modified as a consequence)

- Action brought by a German forwarding agent before the Paris Maritime Arbitration Court (CAMP) in litigation relating to the performance of a maritime charter contract (“project cargo”)

- Representation of the Mexican subsidiary of a German forwarding agent in a dispute relating to the maritime transport of industrial equipment

- Counsel to a French forwarding agent in litigation following the sudden termination of a strategic alliance agreement with a carrier

- Drafting and negotiation of logistics and related service contracts on behalf of chemical, life sciences, etc. corporations

- Drafting, negotiation, and revision of carriage, forwarding, insurance, and vehicle leasing contracts and drawing up of specific transport-related clauses (especially for the pharmaceutical industry)

- Drafting of numerous industrial and pharmaceutical logistics contracts

Customs

- Counsel to a financial institution in a dispute with the customs authorities about a financing scheme for the acquisition of an aircraft

- Counsel to a service provider specializing in the aeronautical sector following the seizure of an aircraft by the customs authorities

- Counsel to a tobacco manufacturer in several cases of litigation against the French customs authorities following transport incidents and customs seizures

- Stock accounts-related advice to businesses (especially in the mass retail sector)

- Negotiations with the customs authorities for the importation of heavily taxed goods after part of the import duties had been evaded

- Challenge to the validity of the customs authorities’ practice of seizing repackaged goods

- Application for action by the customs authorities on behalf of a trademark holder


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