Dismissal of the appeal against the declaration of inadmissibility of the complaint regarding the issuance of a ruling on the origin of barrels

Facts

[X. AG] , a Swiss company specializing in the cleaning, reconditioning, painting, labeling, disposal, and transportation of containers of all kinds, exported used barrels to Germany for reconditioning or disposal. The Federal Customs Administration checked the accuracy of 134 certificates of origin at the request of the German main customs office in Münster and found that in 133 cases the certificates of origin were invalid. [X. AG] appealed against this decision and requested the suspension of the appeal proceedings until the response to its request for a binding origin ruling was available. The Federal Customs Directorate suspended the appeal proceedings and responded to the request for information, stating that the exporter of the barrels was entitled to issue a certificate of origin as long as a prior certificate of origin was available. [X. AG] then requested the issuance of a ruling, which the Federal Customs Directorate rejected. [X. AG] then filed a complaint of denial of justice with the Federal Administrative Court, which dismissed it, as there was already a ruling on the submitted certificates of origin.

Against this decision, [X. AG] appealed to the Federal Supreme Court and requested the annulment of the judgment and the remittal of the case for the issuance of a ruling on the origin of the goods. The Federal Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, as [X. AG] already had a ruling on the performance and the requested declaratory ruling had the same subject matter as this appeal proceedings.

Considerations

The Federal Supreme Court first examined whether the lower court's judgment was a procedural judgment and whether the lower court had actually issued a procedural judgment. It found that the lower court should have entered into the merits of the complaint of denial of justice and then dismissed it.

The Federal Supreme Court then investigated whether the customs legislation gives rise to a legal claim to the issuance of a ruling. It found that the customs administration must issue a ruling in the sense of Art. 5 APA upon request and that the requesting person can appeal to the Federal…