A jeweller has been saddled with a bill for import VAT and customs duties on goods that were stolen in a daring armed robbery from a French customs warehouse, following a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling.

The ruling was made last month following a 2007 robbery of jewellery belonging to Harry Winston - the same firm that fell victim to a recent £35m gem heist from a hotel in Cannes - one of Europe's biggest.

The ECJ ruling heard that the French customs administration required Harry Winston SARL to pay the import VAT and customs duties applicable to those goods as the goods had been placed under customs warehousing arrangements and were therefore subject to the taxes.

The ECJ held that a theft of goods placed under customs warehousing arrangements is an unlawful removal of those goods, giving rise to a customs debt on importation (para. 36 of the judgment.

CCH VAT expert Stan Dencher said: 'Some will be surprised that the theft of goods can cause the owner of the goods to be liable to two fiscal imposts.'

The theft of goods should be distinguished from their destruction or irretrievable loss under Article 206 of the Customs Code.

Article 71 of Directive 2006/112 provides that where, on entry into the EU, goods are placed under one of the arrangements or situations referred to in Articles 156, 276 and 277, or under temporary importation arrangements with exemption from import duty, or under external transit arrangements, the chargeable event occurs so VAT becomes chargeable when the goods cease to be covered by those arrangements or situations.

The Customs Code provides that no liability to import VAT or duty arises if the person concerned proves that the non-fulfilment of its warehousing obligations derives from the destruction or irretrievable loss of the goods as a result of the actual nature of those goods, unforeseeable circumstances, force majeure or as a consequence of authorisation by the customs authority. Force majeure may be defined as an event resulting from the elements of nature, rather than one caused by human behaviour.