DGOC revised preventive measures; importation of cargoes infringing on the IPR subject to confiscation

Attention from those who like to bring pirated CDs from aboard!  In order to reinforce the prevention of certain goods, the Directorate General of Customs has revised the “Guidelines for handling cases where the arrived goods differ from the declaration or do not comply with the import/export regulations”.  In this revision, goods infringing upon other’s intellectual property right, controlled pharmaceutical items listed by the Department of Health, toxic chemical substances listed by the Environmental Protection Administration as well as endangered wild animals were added to the confiscation clause.  

DGOC explained that certain goods, though not suspected of tax evasion or avoidance of management at the import declaration, are involved in violation of other laws and seriously affect the political, economic, social, environmental arenas of Taiwan or our international image.  Explicit preventive measures must be enacted in order to beef up the prevention of such goods and to unify customs offices’ procedures for handling cases of this sort.  Consequently, more confiscatable items were added in this revision.  This will enable customs offices to better prevent such violations and to speed up the transference of such cases to competent authorities for investigation, if necessary.