Excise Movement and Control System: overview of EMCS and fallback procedures: EMCS at Functional Stage 2 (FS2)

FS2 introduced new trader and competent official messages, Administrative Cooperation reports to EMCS and the concept of ‘splitting’ for energy products.

Messages visible to the trade

IE807 - Interruption of a movement (shows as ‘Notice of Seizure’ on EMCS). This message is created by an Officer either in the UK or another MS and is used where goods have been seized in the course of a movement. This message closes the movement and its actions cannot be reversed, so officers must ensure that all required action on EMCS has been taken before creating an Interruption message. Officers must also ensure that reasonable grounds exist to create such a message. In addition, whatever information is entered by the officer becomes visible to both the consignor and consignee once the interruption message is sent. Note: you should carefully consider the information entered when creating an IE807.
IE819 - Alert or rejection. This message is only available for use after an ARC has been issued. It allows the consignee to reject an eAD or to advise the consignor of a problem with the goods. When this message is created by the consignee to reject the goods, the consignor must create a CoD.
IE825 - Draft of a splitting operation. This message can only be used for the splitting of energy products and is only available to traders using their own commercial software. This message allows the consignor to split an eAD into two or more (up to a maximum of nine) new destinations approved to receive the goods. Each new eAD created can be further split up to a maximum of nine. The act of creating the message creates new eADs and associated IE801 messages for all new consignees. EMCS carries out the same validation procedures as when the original draft eAD was submitted. The total of the split eADs must always match the total of the original eAD. The new IE801 messages (downstream ARCs) are linked to the original IE801 (upstream ARC) which will now be allocated the status of ‘replaced’. Note: only where the destination on the upstream eAD is ‘unknown’, can one of the downstream eADs have a destination of ‘unknown’. Additionally, each downstream eAD must be consigned to a different address, ie two or more splits cannot be to exactly the same destination.
IE871 - Explanation on reason for shortage. This message may be created by the consignor or the consignee and is used to explain the reason for any shortage in a consignment. The UK were able to receive these messages from other MS but traders in the UK could not create these messages until the introduction of FS 2.1.

Use of Interruption messages and restoration of goods

An Interruption message related to seized loads should only be created once all investigation has been completed, and restoration is not an option.

It has been established that seized goods actually enter a limbo state and the goods could be returned in duty suspension or on payment of duty (CEMA 152(b) allows us to apply any conditions to restoration). If found to be innocent goods we should release them back into duty suspension, but this can only be done where the eAD is still live on EMCS.

Goods still held at the port

Provided an Interruption message has not been issued, where goods are seized and subsequently restored within a few hours or up to a few days (i.e. when the goods are still held at the port), then a control report (IE717) should be created on EMCS against that ARC. This shows that the UK Border Force intercepted the consignment but no further action was taken. The goods can then carry on to the delivery address as noted on the eAD for the consignment and be receipted on EMCS in the normal way by the consignee.

Goods held in a Queen’s warehouse

If the restoration occurs within one calendar month of the date of seizure, then the goods may move on the original eAD on EMCS. A control report (IE717) should be created against that ARC on EMCS at the point of seizure and another one created upon the decision to restore the goods. This will capture the information on EMCS, allowing the dispatching MS’s authorities to view this information and provide them with an explanation of what has happened to the goods. This requires that an Interruption message or manual closure request is not submitted to close the movement on EMCS. (Note: this is the most likely scenario for seized consignments). This will allow the movement from the Queen’s Warehouse to the consignee to be accompanied by the relevant ARC.

Where more than one calendar month has passed since the date of seizure, goods become forfeit to the Crown. We could insist that goods restored after this point can only be returned on payment of duty. Alternatively, where the eAD is still live on EMCS, we could follow the procedure suggested for goods that have not yet become forfeit.

Use of Interruption messages and duplicate loads

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