Petmaster is a company based in Turkey, owned by Ismael Oguz, who represented the company.

In 2021 the company put plans in motion to import supplies to the UK, prompting the appellant to approach accountants in the UK regarding what was needed to do.

The accountant Oguz contacted for this went on to give him the wrong advice regarding registering for VAT, but Petmaster was established as a UK company through Companies House soon after this communication.

Oguz used his and his wife’s savings of three years to purchase the cat litter in bulk and pay for all of the importation costs, amounting to £4,377.60. But the 24 tonnes of cat litter was worth an annual salary for Oguz.

The issue was the fulfilment house (FH) Petmaster used was not approved by HMRC and did not hold the relevant licenses to hold imported stock. Tribunal judge Nathaniel Rudolf KC said: ‘We do not accept that the owner of the fulfilment house (FH) was told by HMRC that nothing was missing and having confirmation to trade as an FH nor that he was unable to find details of FHs online because of misspelling “fulfilment".

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