Michelin and Cooper face Chinese Customs penalties

Well-known tyre brands Michelin and Cooper have faced Chinese customs penalties since July, Tyrepress China has learned.

On 14 July, Kunshan Customs stated that Cooper (Kunshan) had falsely declared the country of origin of goods during import and was fined 23,000 yuan. It is reported that between June 2020 and May 2022, this tyre factory mistakenly declared the country of origin as “Germany” when importing trans-polydactyl rubber from the United States. Because of this mistake, about 46,000 yuan of tax was omitted when goods worth about 1.03 million yuan entered China.

Kunshan Customs stated that the violation was caused by the negligence of Cooper (Kunshan) staff. After Cooper (Kunshan) discovered the problem during its self-inspection, it took the initiative to report the situation to the customs. Therefore, Kunshan Customs imposed a lighter punishment for the “violation of the false declaration of the country of origin of imported goods”.

On August 21, Shanghai Michelin received a fine of 140,000 yuan from customs. This penalty is retroactive from 31 December  2021. At that time, Shanghai Michelin entrusted a logistics company to import three goods in the form of general trade. After verification by the customs, the actual prices of the three items of goods did not match the declared prices. The administrative penalty decision issued by the customs showed that Shanghai Michelin “due to work errors, declared incorrect prices for goods to the customs, which affected the collection of national taxes”.