Swedish customs looses in court

A month ago I wrote a post on Swedish customs stopping e-liquid imported by a company called Trade Team, at the border and "administratively placing it into care". This was the second time they had done that. The first time they had claimed it that the e-liquid was a pharmaceutical product, but a court decided that the e-liquid's classification was yet undecided and that Trade Team could continue until that was decided in court. This has not been done yet. The second time Swedish Customs (claiming to be operating on their own, not influenced by the Swedish Medicines Agency) used a new reason: "administratively placing it into care". Again Trade Team complained, of course, and now a court has finally decided. I'm happy see that Swedish customs lost again and has to release the e-liquid to Trade Team: http://goo.gl/NpaGw3

Morten Paulsen, the owner of Trade Team, says it is ridiculous that they keep on doing this and that it's a waste of money and time. He also claims that it is the Swedish Medicines Agency that is pushing customs to do this, but both the agency and customs deny this and say that customs is acting on their own. I'm having trouble believing this as customs argue in court that e-cigarettes "usually" should be handled as medicines, and refers to the fact that the medicines agency believes this is a pharmaceutical product. But this is yet to be decided by a court.

Paulsen says that his company has lost around 400.000 SEK (around £40.000) on the case in addition to expenses for lawyers. He is now demanding half a million SEK back from the Swedish customs. Neither Swedish customs and the Swedish Medicines Agency wants to comment the case when "Sydsvenskan" asks for a comment, but the agency says in an email that their classification of the products has not change. Lets hope they keep loosing in court then.

Thanks to Dan (@danmacdonald73) who made me aware of this article via Twitter. I bet Grizewald who made me aware of the case in the first place is also happy to see this, and even though it is kind of a temporary reprieve for vaping in Sweden I think it looks like it's heading in the right direction.