Plaintiff Zhejiang Zhong Da Huatai Textile Co., Ltd. ..
Legal Representative: Fu, chairman of the board of directors of this company.
Authorized Agent: Chen, lawyer of Shanghai Zhengchuanben Law Firm.
Authorized Agent: Liu Xun, lawyer of Shanghai Zheng Chuanben Law Firm.
Defendant Shanghai Deneng International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd.
Legal Representative: Hao Jie, manager of this company.
Authorized Agent: Zhou Jing, lawyer of Shanghai Jinmao Law Firm.
Plaintiff Zhejiang Zhong Da Huatai Textile Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit against defendant Shanghai Deneng International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd. on March 26th, 2008. After the court accepted the case on the same day, the summary procedure was applied according to law. On April 9, 2008, the defendant raised a jurisdictional objection, and our court rejected the defendant's jurisdictional objection after examination. The defendant refused to accept the appeal, and the Shanghai Higher People's Court ruled (2008)No. 1 14 and upheld the original judgment. The court heard the case in public on September 7, 2008. Chen, the plaintiff's entrusted agent, and the defendant's legal agent and entrusted agent attended the proceedings in court. The case has now been closed.
According to the original data, on May 25th, 2007, the plaintiff sent the defendant an export consignment note with the number of 9 17YHTB039 via MSN, entrusting the defendant to book a cargo ship from Shanghai to Haiphong, Vietnam on June 25th. On May 28th of the same year, the plaintiff faxed some data that needed to be revised or finally emphasized to the defendant, so that the defendant could declare the goods in combination with the contents of the consignment note for export goods. Previously, on May 18 of the same year, the plaintiff entrusted the defendant to handle the goods export agency business under the export consignment with the number of 9 17YHTB038 in the same way, and the relevant information of the two batches of goods was basically the same. After the goods were loaded, the plaintiff received the pre-recorded customs declaration form returned by the defendant, and found that the name of the goods under the consignment note 9 17YHTB039 was wrong, and the "cotton elastic knitted fabric" was wrongly reported as "polyester knitted fabric". The plaintiff immediately asked the defendant to change the custom, but the defendant refused to change it for various reasons. In July 2007, the above two batches of goods were returned due to quality problems, so the plaintiff entrusted the defendant to handle the return procedures and requested to change the name of the goods again. The defendant said that the product renaming procedure was complicated, and he was willing to take full responsibility if there were any problems. By the end of June 5438+ 10 of the same year, the defendant informed the plaintiff that the goods were detained by the customs because of the misnamed name, and the plaintiff had no choice but to pay various import taxes and fees of RMB 260,628.77 before the goods could be cleared. The plaintiff believed that all the expenses were caused by the defendant's customs declaration error, so she demanded the defendant to compensate for the loss of 260,628.77 yuan (including import tariff of 62,929.70 yuan, import value-added tax of 1 17678.54 yuan, deferred payment of 420 13 yuan and container overdue fee of 30 yuan).
The defendant argued: First of all, the power of attorney for the declaration of the goods involved showed that the plaintiff entrusted Shanghai Jihua International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd. to declare the goods, so the plaintiff improperly regarded our company as the defendant. Secondly, according to the customs declaration certificate obtained by Shanghai Customs, the documents stamped with the plaintiff's seal, such as the owner's customs declaration form, packing list (weight list), special export invoice, and declaration power of attorney, were all filled in by the plaintiff himself and printed as "polyester knitted fabric" or 100% polyester warp knitted fabric, so the defendant did not misreport "cotton elastic knitted fabric" as "polyester knitted fabric". The defendant never told the plaintiff that he was at fault and was willing to take responsibility. Third, when the goods are returned for import, the container has been replaced, and the goods themselves have no brand or other special signs to check. It is impossible to verify whether the so-called return is the export goods under the 9 17YHTB039 consignment. To sum up, the plaintiff's claim lacks factual and legal basis and requests the court not to support it.
The evidence provided by the plaintiff to prove the facts of his allegations, the cross-examination of the defendant and the expert opinions of our court are as follows:
The first group of export consignment notes with evidence numbers of 9 17YHTB038 and 9 17YHTB039 and the corrected fax copies of data information (hereinafter referred to as the data information sheet) prove that the original defendant and the defendant established the freight forwarding relationship involved through MSN and fax, and the goods were named cotton elastic knitted fabrics. The defendant cross-examined that the defendant did not receive the consignment note for export goods, and the entrustment relationship between the two parties was established by fax data information sheet; No.917 yhtb039 data sheet did not indicate the name of the goods, and the plaintiff told the defendant that the name of the goods was polyester knitted fabric through telephone and MSN chat. We believe that the defendant has no objection to the data information sheet, and the evidence is established, but there is no name of the goods on the data information sheet number. 9 17YHTB039, so the evidence is not conclusive for the fact that the plaintiff has informed the defendant that the Chinese name of the goods is cotton elastic knitted fabric. As for the consignment note for export goods, the plaintiff claimed that it was sent to the defendant through MSN network, but did not provide other evidence to prove it, and the defendant denied receiving the two consignment notes, so the evidence effect was not recognized. Even if the defendant did receive the two waybills, the Chinese name of the goods was not clearly indicated on the waybill, so the waybill did not prove the fact that the plaintiff had correctly informed the defendant of the Chinese name of the goods.
The second set of evidence, the fax sent by the plaintiff to the defendant on July 6, 2007, proves that the plaintiff asked the defendant to handle the return procedures under the consignment notes of 9 17YHTB038 and 9 17YHTB039. The defendant has no objection to the authenticity, and the validity of the evidence is confirmed by our court.
The third set of evidence, the statement issued by the defendant to the customs, proves that the defendant admitted that the error in the customs declaration was caused by his negligence. The defendant has no objection to the authenticity, but thinks that the defendant was forced to issue this statement at the plaintiff's request under the condition that the plaintiff owed a large amount of freight and miscellaneous fees, only for the plaintiff to apply to the customs for modifying the name of the goods, and did not admit the responsibility. The description of the situation is only expressed as "due to negligence", and it is not stated that it is due to the negligence of the defendant. The court held that since the defendant confirmed that the statement was issued by him, the validity of the evidence was determined. However, the explanation of the situation did not specify whose fault caused the error in the customs declaration, so the evidence was not conclusive for the plaintiff to claim that the defendant admitted his fault.
The fourth group of evidence, including freight forwarding invoices, special customs payment books, late payment receipts and payment vouchers, proves the specific composition and amount of the plaintiff's losses. The defendant has no objection to the authenticity, but thinks that the freight forwarding fee invoice is issued by Shanghai Jinghai Freight Co., Ltd., while the import declaration form is actually handled by Shanghai Chen Xing Customs Declaration Co., Ltd., and the freight forwarding fee includes the expenses of two tickets, 9 17YHTB038 and 9 17YHTB039, which cannot be distinguished, so the relevance of this evidence is not recognized. We believe that the name of the ship, voyage and bill of lading number shown on the freight forwarding invoice are consistent with the name of the ship, voyage and bill of lading number of the returned goods, and the evidence can be confirmed. The remaining invoices and payment vouchers are consistent with the information obtained from the customs, and the validity and probative force of the evidence are also recognized.
The evidence provided by the defendant to prove his claim, the plaintiff's cross-examination and our opinion are as follows:
The first set of evidence, customs declaration No.222620070767225348 and its attached documents (this set of evidence was obtained from the Shanghai Customs Archives Department at the defendant's application), proved that: 1, the owner's customs declaration form, packing list (weight list), special export invoice and customs declaration power of attorney filled out by the plaintiff all recorded the name of the goods as "polyester knitted fabric" or "65433". 2. The export declaration agent of the goods involved is Shanghai Jihua International Freight Agency Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jihua Freight); 3. The container number when the goods are exported is GLDU7 13 1467. The plaintiff cross-examined that 1, the plaintiff handed the blank document with seal to the defendant and the relevant information was filled in by the defendant; 2. The plaintiff entrusts the defendant and has no customs declaration entrustment relationship with Jihua Freight; 3. There is no objection to the container number. We believe that this group of evidence is taken from the customs archives, and the validity of this evidence should be recognized. As for whether there is an entrusted customs declaration relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, our court will analyze and identify it separately with the following other evidence.
The second set of evidence, the statement issued by Jihua Freight, proves that the plaintiff sent the cargo owner's customs declaration form, packing list (weight list), special export invoice and customs declaration power of attorney directly to Jihua Freight. The plaintiff cross-examined that the evidence only proved the fact that the plaintiff entrusted the defendant and the defendant entrusted Jihua Freight. The contents of the customs declaration directly sent by the plaintiff to Jihua Freight are inconsistent with the facts and will not be confirmed. We believe that this statement is the original with the official seal of Jihua Freight, and its authenticity can be confirmed. According to the statement of Jihua Freight that "our company was entrusted by Shanghai Deneng International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd. in late May 2007 to declare a batch of export goods to Shanghai Pujiang Customs on behalf of Zhejiang Zhong Da Huatai Textile Co., Ltd.", combined with the statement made by the defendant to the Customs in the third set of evidence of the plaintiff that "our company was entrusted by the customer to declare the goods exported to Haiphong through the customs broker on May 29, 2007", we can conclude that the plaintiff was entrusted. As for the part where the plaintiff sent the customs declaration documents directly to Jihua Freight, apart from the statement of Jihua Freight, there was no other evidence to prove that Jihua Freight did not appear in court to accept questions from the plaintiff and our hospital, so our hospital refused to accept this part.
The third set of evidence, the Tax Payment Certificate of Returned Export Goods, proves that the plaintiff has paid taxes to the tax authorities according to the "polyester knitted fabric" because of the failure of the export transaction. The plaintiff has no objection to the authenticity, but thinks that no matter what the name of the commodity is, it will involve tax refund. The plaintiff confirmed the authenticity of the evidence, and our court confirmed the validity and probative force of the evidence.
The fourth set of evidence, the customs declaration with the number of 22252008 1258043607 and the attached documents (this set of evidence was obtained from the Shanghai Customs Archives Department at the defendant's application), proved that the import container number was GESU5 142907, which was inconsistent with the container used for export, and it was impossible to identify the import and export goods as the same batch of goods. The loss claimed by the plaintiff has nothing to do with the customs declaration. The plaintiff cross-examined that the goods had been unpacked at the port of destination, and returned them in boxes after discovering quality problems, so the case numbers were inconsistent. We believe that this group of evidence is taken from the customs archives, and the validity of this evidence should be recognized. The plaintiff's cross-examination opinion that the returned container number is inconsistent with the export time is reasonable and adopted by our court. On the contrary, according to the customs cargo inspection record attached to this group of evidence, the reason why the customs refused to recognize the goods as returned goods was that the actual quality of the goods did not match the name of the export declaration form, not the container number, so this group of evidence was not enough to deny the relationship between the plaintiff's loss and the customs declaration error.
The defendant also provided the fifth set of evidence in court, MSN online chat records, which proved that the plaintiff informed the defendant that the goods under the consignment note 9 17YHTB039 were named "polyester knitted fabrics". The plaintiff believes that the time limit for adducing evidence has expired and its authenticity cannot be confirmed. Our court believes that the evidence is only a computer-printed text in form, and the identities of the two parties to the dialogue are not clear, so the validity of the evidence is not recognized.
After reviewing the evidence and combining the statements made by Yuan and the defendant in the trial, our court found the following facts:
In May 2007, the plaintiff entrusted the defendant to handle the export agency business of goods from Shanghai to Haiphong, Vietnam, for 9 17YHTB038 and 9 17YHTB039 respectively. Among them, the goods 9 17YHTB039 under the entrusted business number should be "cotton elastic knitted fabric". According to the plaintiff, he sent a consignment note for export goods to the defendant, and the name and specification indicated on the consignment note were "95% CTN 5% Spandex ingle Jersey150 gsmcuttablewidth 58". According to this translation, it can be concluded that the correct Chinese name of the commodity is "cotton elastic knitted fabric".
When handling the goods export declaration, the plaintiff provided the defendant with the owner's declaration form, packing list (weight list), special export invoice and declaration power of attorney. Among the above-mentioned documents, the packing list (weight list) stamped with the plaintiff's name stamp and the legal representative's signature stamp, the export invoice shows the name "100% poly trico", and the owner's declaration form and declaration power of attorney show the name "polyester knitted fabric". After accepting the entrustment, the plaintiff actually went through the export declaration by collecting freight from outsiders in China. Finally, the customs approved the export of this batch of goods with "Polyester Knitted Fabric 100% poly trico". In July 2007, the plaintiff claimed that the goods were returned for quality reasons and entrusted the defendant to handle the return and import declaration. On September 4th of the same year, the goods were shipped to Shanghai. At the time of import declaration, the customs found that the actual quality of the goods was cotton knitted fabric, which was inconsistent with the "polyester knitted fabric" declared at the time of export declaration, so it was not recognized as returned goods on the spot. In the same year1October 24 10, the defendant issued a statement to the customs at the plaintiff's request, saying: "Entrusted by the customer, our company declared the goods exported to Haiphong through the customs broker on May 29, 2007. Due to negligence, the cotton elastic knitted fabric with the correct name was misreported as polyester knitted fabric. Because cotton elastic knitted fabrics do not involve commodity inspection and quota, our company failed to correct this mistake in time. Now the goods of this ticket need to be returned due to quality problems. Please arrange for modification, but the customs does not agree to the modification. Afterwards, the plaintiff entrusted Shanghai Jinghai Freight Co., Ltd. to handle the import customs clearance procedures. On June 5438+1October 65438+May, 2008, the customs made a decision to levy taxes on the goods involved. On June 6th and 7th of the same year,1October 65438, 65438, the goods involved were released by the customs after re-declaration and payment of import duties of 62929.70 yuan, import value-added tax of 1 17678.54 yuan and late payment fee of 420 13 yuan. The import declaration form approved by the customs shows that the trade name is "cotton elastic knitted fabric", the component content is "97% cotton 3% spandex, and the width is 58". In addition, the plaintiff also paid 38,007.53 yuan for the overdue use of the container.
We believe that according to the ascertained facts, the plaintiff entrusted the defendant to handle the export declaration of the goods involved, and the defendant accepted the entrustment and collected the freight in China through the outsider. Therefore, the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, including export declaration, is a freight forwarding commission.
On this basis, the focus of the dispute in this case is whether the defendant was at fault in misreporting the name of the goods during the customs declaration. In the customs declaration entrustment relationship, the client is obliged to inform the trustee of detailed and accurate information about the goods, and the trustee should handle the specific customs declaration affairs in strict accordance with the information provided by the client. In this case, the plaintiff claimed that, as the principal, he had sent a consignment note for export goods to the defendant, and the consignment note indicated the detailed information of the goods. We think there is no evidence that the defendant received the consignment note for export goods. Even if the defendant did receive the consignment note for the export goods, the consignment note only contained the English expression of "95% CTN 5% Spandex Ingle Jersey150 gsmcuttablewidth 58", and there was no Chinese translation. It is obviously beyond the obligation and ability of the freight forwarder to ask the defendant to translate the accurate Chinese name of the goods into "cotton elastic knitted fabric". In addition, the expression "95% CTN 5% Spandex ingle Jersey150 gsmcuttablewidth 58" is also very professional in the textile industry. According to common sense, the defendant, as a freight agent, cannot translate the name of the disputed goods into "all-polyester knitted fabric" without the plaintiff's confirmation. The plaintiff clearly told the defendant that the Chinese name of the commodity was "cotton elastic knitted fabric", and no proof was given. On the contrary, the existing evidence proves that both the packing list (weight list) stamped with the plaintiff's name stamp and the legal representative's signature stamp and the special export invoice show the name of the goods as "100% poly trico", and the corresponding Chinese translation should be "polyester knitted fabric". It can be seen that the name declared by the defendant to the customs is not different from the name provided by the plaintiff. Even if the name does not match the actual situation of the goods, the responsibility is not borne by the defendant. In addition, although the customs finally identified the name of the imported goods as "cotton elastic knitted fabric", its component content was "97% cotton 3% spandex", while the plaintiff claimed that the component content of the exported goods was "95% cotton 5% spandex", which was not completely consistent.
As for the original claim that the defendant has promised to take full responsibility, this court will not accept it because there is no evidence to prove it.
To sum up, the defendant is not at fault in the process of performing the agency obligation, and does not need to be liable for the plaintiff's losses.
According to the first paragraph of Article 64 of the Civil Procedure Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) and the first paragraph of Article 406 of the Contract Law of People's Republic of China (PRC), the judgment is as follows:
The plaintiff's claim of Zhejiang Zhong Da Huatai Textile Co., Ltd. is not supported.
The case acceptance fee of this case is 5209.43 yuan, and 2604.72 yuan is charged by halving due to the application of summary procedure, which shall be borne by the plaintiff, Zhejiang Zhong Da Huatai Textile Co., Ltd.
If you refuse to accept this judgment, you can submit an appeal to our court within 15 days from the date of service of the judgment, and submit copies according to the number of the other parties to appeal to the Shanghai Higher People's Court.
Presiding judge Jin Xiaofeng
Bookkeeper Sun Ye