Cut price, cheap cigarettes and cigars mailed from Spain

The Full Legal Story

We understand your concern about this matter and hope the information provided will put your mind at ease.

Tobacco from Spain has been in operation now since October, 1999 with very little intervention from British Customs. Whilst we appreciate the guidelines to which H.M. Customs & Excise are operating, the UK statutory instrument 3155-1992 is incorrectly quoting the European Union document 392L0012 - 92/12/EEC - 25 February 1992 "legislation in force" Article 8 - Journal L76 23.03.1992.

Article 8 Clearly specifies that "As regards products acquired by private individuals for their own use and transported by them, the principle governing the internal market lays down that excise duty shall be charged in the Member State in which they are acquired". Any action therefore by Customs and Excise is in direct contravention of EEC law.

These directives, which ALSO apply to the UK, can be found on the European Union website: We have copied the relevant text from the site which you will find below:

START
"According to the principles governing the Internal Market, private persons are entitled to bring excisable goods from one Member State into another without any restrictions provided that the goods are acquired for their own use and are transported by the private individuals themselves. Excise duties on these products are charged in the Member State of purchase and no further excise duties are chargeable in the Member State of destination. The objective of this harmonised rule is to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market".
END

The legislation does NOT indicate that the goods have to be accompanied with the person, only that the private individual arranges the transport, which our customers do when they order. Neither does it mention distance selling, gifts or any other of the ¨directives¨ that UK Customs seem to be making up as they go along. In current European legislation, there is no reference, or legal basis whatsoever, to "carried or accompanied by".

Customs have even ammended their website to state that cigarettes can be sent from abroad as long as they are a gift from one individual to another. Although we offer a gift service where one individual may send a gift to another, Customs now state that this gift may not be purchased off the internet. So they will allow a father for example in Spain to buy cigarettes in a shop and send cigarettes to his son by post, but not if the father purchased the gift off the internet.

The only European Law precedence is Case Number C-296/95 The Queen -v- EMU Tabac / Man in Black Ltd & John Cunningham.

In these papers, the Judges declared that their operation only became a commercial operation due to the cigarette sales being procured in England by an English agent, with the transportation being arranged by the same agent. Further, the English agent (Man in Black Ltd) agreed to absorb any currency fluctuations on behalf of his customers by reducing or increasing its agency fees and, offered its services subject to English law.

The Judges ruled in recital numbers 23/24/25/26/27/28, that their customers would have legally qualified for the personal status of article 8 had they not used an agent to sell, purchase and transport the goods into the United Kingdom.

If any of our customers do have any problems, we would ask them to write to the UK Customs and go through the process of appealing against the seizure. Meanwhile, we will be quite happy to replace the order for them FREE OF CHARGE. We are currently initiating court proceedings against Customs and Excise in Brussels. This is something we gladly do as Customs and Excise directives (not laws, mind you, just directives) are in clear contravention of EEC law. This legal action may include a report of theft and interfering with the public mail.

Basically, we feel that you, the British consumer, should not be discriminated against and prevented from taking advantage of FREE TRADE WITHIN EUROPE.

It's a disgrace to think that if your job involved a lot of european travel you could be enjoying cheap cigarettes but not if you work mainly in the UK. So much for the Open European Market.

Please be rest assured that over 6,000 satisfied customers order from us on a regular basis. Thank you for your custom and enjoy!

John Curtin, CEO Global Communications Spain, Tobacco from Spain

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