What Happened 

In Preferred Tubes Limited v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 524 (TC), a Midlands-based steel importer found itself on the wrong end of a £243,599 safeguarding duty demand, plus £48,720 in import VAT. 

Between January and November 2021, Preferred Tubes imported mild steel products from EU countries. These goods were subject to a safeguard quota. If you claimed the quota correctly, no additional duty applied. If you did not, the rate was 25%. 

The company’s customs agents did not claim the quota. Instead, they used a duty override code to bypass the system entirely. When asked why, the company’s director told the tribunal that his agents had advised him ‘there was no need to make a quota claim’ and that ‘it was quicker and easier to use an override code since this would ease the traffic jams around Kent.’ 

In other words: the broker took a shortcut, and the importer trusted them. 

HMRC issued a post-clearance demand. Preferred Tubes paid £235,515 and then tried to recover the duty through a retrospective quota claim. Only £57,330 came back. The rest of the quota had already been used up by other importers who had declared correctly in the first place. 

When the company finally tried to appeal, the tribunal rejected it. The appeal was 164 days late, and the tribunal found that blaming the agent for the shortcut was ‘wholly irrelevant to the correctness of the decision.’ 

The company was left nearly £180,000 out of pocket, with no route of appeal.

The Principle The Tribunal Keeps Reinforcing 

This is not an isolated finding. The same principle runs through multiple tribunal decisions, and the language gets clearer every time. 

In DSV Air & Sea Limited v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 129 (TC), DSV, one of the world’s largest logistics companies, was acting as import agent for a company called GWY, handling imports of Chinese rice cooking wine. The declarations were wrong and HMRC issued assessments totalling over £1.7 million. The tribunal found that DSV ‘acted simply as agents for GWY’ and that ‘neither he nor DSV provided advice to their customers.’ The tribunal was explicit: 

‘HMRC clearly leave the responsibility for ascertaining the commodity code and payment of excise duty on the importer.’ 

The tribunal went further, noting that ‘any import agent would logically rely on the importer to provide details of the goods they were importing, as the importer would have a detailed knowledge necessary.’ In other words, it is the importer who knows what the goods are. The agent just processes the paperwork. 

In Anra Deals Limited v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 755 (TC), an importer had 18 out of 21 entries declared incorrectly. The company’s agents had refused to advise on classification codes, so the importer used a third-party website instead. The tribunal found that ‘the use of third party websites was not sufficient to show that adequate due diligence had taken place’ and that the errors indicated the business ‘had not applied appropriate due diligence in making the import declaration.’ The goods were seized and the tribunal upheld HMRC’s refusal to restore them. 

The pattern is consistent: the importer holds the liability. Every time. 

So What Does This Mean For You? 

If you are importing goods into the UK and using a customs broker or freight forwarder to handle your declarations, you need to understand three things. 

First, liability does not transfer. Appointing a broker does not shift your legal responsibility. Even if your broker makes a mistake, even if they give you bad advice, the customs debt lands with you as the importer of record. The tribunal has made this clear repeatedly. ‘My broker told me to do it’ is not a defence. 

Second, bad advice can be expensive. In the Preferred Tubes case, the broker’s shortcut cost the importer nearly £180,000. These are not theoretical risks. They are real financial losses that hit real businesses. 

Third, you can protect yourself, but you need to act before things go wrong. If your broker gets the classification wrong or takes a shortcut on a declaration, your only route to recover those costs is through your contract with them. A well-drafted agreement that clearly allocates responsibility for accuracy, and sets out what happens when errors occur, gives you a commercial route to recover losses. However, your broker might resist signing terms where they accept liability. Without it, you carry the full cost alone.