Customs, authorities and courts
I establish what is there.
When a consignment of cigars has to be clarified, four points are involved: authenticity, quantity, condition and value. I examine these points, record every step of the examination item by item, and hand over the result in writing.
My reports are privately commissioned reports. I am not publicly appointed and sworn.
Services
What I examine and establish
When originals have to be told apart from counterfeits and a value has to be put in figures, the individual features are what matter.
- Authentication
- Verification of Cuban and other premium cigars. Every step of the examination is documented item by item, with photographs, finding and time, so that each finding can later be matched to a specific exhibit. The chain of custody itself is maintained by the investigating authority.
- Valuation for customs purposes
- Neutral determination of the market value of seized or impounded consignments of cigars, in line with the market, as a specialist basis for the authority's own determination of value.
- Expert reports for proceedings
- Specialist findings on authenticity, quantity, condition and value that you or your legal representatives can use in customs, tax or civil proceedings.
For context: as a rule I examine seized or impounded goods on the authority's premises, not at my own. I do not take cigars into safekeeping where proper payment of tax on them is not documented.
A result that discloses every step of the examination and can therefore be checked.
Scope
What I do not do
I establish facts. I do not give legal or tax advice.
- No legal advice
- In Germany, legal advice is reserved for admitted lawyers.
- No assistance in tax matters
- In Germany, assistance in tax matters is reserved for the regulated tax advisory professions.
- No representation
- I do not represent you before authorities.
If you need both, I work in support of the law firm or the tax practice that you instruct.
Working with law firms
In German civil proceedings, a report you commission yourself is submitted as a party's own evidence and is not expert evidence appointed by the court under the German Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung). You can submit it, and a court may then appoint me as its own expert witness.
How a court assesses a privately commissioned report that has been submitted is for the court to decide. I tell you beforehand what I can establish and what I cannot, so that you know what you are relying on.
Where a case is already under way or impending, instructing me through the law firm is the clean route. Describe the question that needs to be resolved and I will tell you whether it falls within my field and which documents or items I need for it.
On my status: I am not publicly appointed and sworn under section 36 of the German Trade Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung), and I do not use any such title. My reports are privately commissioned reports. If a court or an authority appoints me in specific proceedings, the procedural law that applies there governs.
Process
From the first telephone call to the expert report
You describe the case
What it is about, how many items there are, where they are being held and by when you need the result. Through the form, by email or by telephone.
I look at what is there
From photographs, or on the authority's premises. Which of the two is possible depends on where the goods are being held and what stage the proceedings have reached.
You receive the result in writing
With photographs, with reasons for each point examined, and with a valuation date. An analysis from photographs is normally ready within a few working days. If it is urgent, say so, and I will give you a firm date by which I can have it done.
The first telephone call, in which we settle scope and cost, is free of charge and commits you to nothing. How the cost is made up
Discretion
I treat your instruction in confidence. I do not pass on your details, the provenance of the cigars or the result to third parties, I do not name you as a reference, and I do not show your items to anyone. There are four limits that I state openly, because no one can rule them out.
- Statutory obligations
- Retention periods under tax law, and giving evidence if I am summoned as a witness in court. Unlike lawyers, doctors and tax advisers, I have no right to refuse to give evidence.
- Instructions from authorities
- In those cases the authority is my client, and the result goes to them.
- Cases already under way
- Where a case is already under way or impending, please speak to a lawyer first and have me instructed through them.
- Details submitted through this website
- What happens to the details from the contact form and how long they are stored is set out in the privacy policy.
Do you have a case to resolve?
Describe briefly what it is about. I will tell you whether the question falls within my field and what I need for it.
- Telephone
- +49 176 20150975
- info (at) zigarrenexpertise.com