Non-preferential origin and economically justified working

In Harley-Davidson Europe and Neovia Logistics Services International v Commission (T-324/21), the General Court has dismissed an action for annulment against a Decision by the European Commission (2021/563) on the validity of certain decisions relating to binding origin information (BOI).

About the “commercial/non-preferential origin” (made in) of the goods, the Tribunal highlithed that:

• the relocation of the production in a customs territory outside the European Union, just only to avoid the application of its commercial policy measures, must be considered incapable because it is not economically justified;
• the EU Commission is entitled to annul any BOI (binding origin information) and also BTI (binding tariff information) when these “rulings” are released against the European legislations. For sake of completeness, the case under our analysis does not treat the binding tariff information but their rationale is the same of the BOI and in the future the BVI (binding value information).