Opinion of Advocate General Bot in the case Interservice.
Article 96(2) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code must be interpreted as meaning that the term ‘carrier' refers to any person who carries out the transport of goods which he accepted knowing that they were moving under the Community transit procedure, whether under a transport agreement concluded with the contractor or under a subcontracting agreement concluded with the main carrier, and that the obligation laid down in that provision is incumbent on the carrier during the time he is in charge of the goods physically in his possession.
In a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, in which the transport subcontractor actually transported the goods to the car park of the customs office of destination and handed over the documents relating to those goods to the representative of the main carrier in order for the latter to carry out the procedure for discharge of the external Community transit procedure, the transport subcontractor was discharged of his obligation when he transferred responsibility for the goods and the accompanying documents to the main carrier.
Furthermore, the fact that the transport subcontractor subsequently continued the transport of the goods to another Member State does not involve any obligation for him to check, before continuing the transport, that the main carrier had actually produced the goods at the customs office of destination for purposes of discharging the external Community transit procedure. He might nonetheless incur liability if it were established that he continued the transport of the goods being aware of information establishing that that procedure had not been properly completed, which is a matter for the referring court to decide in the light of all the relevant facts.
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