Daewoo France Fined

Daewoo Electronics France on December 30 was fined 13.7 million dollars by French customs officials.
According to Daewoo, French officials ruled that Daewoo's printing circuit boards should be classified as 'finished goods' because it basically imports Polish tuners attached to the circuit boards.
As a result of the ruling, Daewoo will by imposed a higher duty on the imports from January 1995 to December 1997. Up to now, Daewoo has reported the circuit boards under the harmonized system classification and French customs concurred imposing a 3.8 percent customs tax.
However, recently France changed its interpretation of import classifications to be in accord with new European Union regulations and raised the duty to 14 percent retroactively.
Daewoo will file a suit with the World Customs Organization if the EU does not rescind its ruling.