The International Road Transport Union releases key documents disproving allegations made by Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation concerning more than 4,000 cases of alleged old TIR debts to justify illegal TIR restrictions on Russian territory since July 2013.

Geneva – The International Road Transport Union (IRU) publicly released key documents today disproving once and for all allegations made by the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation (FCS RF) to justify illegal TIR restrictions on Russian territory since July 2013, concerning alleged old TIR debts from the IRU’s Russian TIR Guaranteeing Association - the Association of International Road Transport Carriers (ASMAP).

The release of these documents follows a very clear judgment from the Moscow Arbitration Court on 13 February which had already recognised that the FCS RF allegations were not in conformity to reality and defamatory.

Today, the release of the whole set of related documents are the result of a detailed objective analysis conducted by a team of 20 claims experts, who looked at each and every one of the more than 4,000 alleged cases to determine their exact status and respond with concrete evidence.

While some of these cases date as far back as 1993, nearly half of them had never been reported to the IRU until November 2013 when the FCS RF finally sent an official letter containing lists of the alleged cases. Moreover, out of the more than 4,000 cases, only four recent cases are still pending a decision, which represents less than 0.1% of all cases reported to the IRU by the FCS RF.

Commenting on the public release of documents disproving these allegations, IRU Head of Legal Affairs, Kseniya Kasko, said, “This confirmation of the absence of any debt from the TIR guarantee chain towards Russian Customs comes as no surprise, as we all know how efficiently the TIR System functions. The IRU has nothing to hide, which is why we are making this information available for public scrutiny, with no restrictions. We are now ready to explain these files in detail to any interested party, including to any Russian competent authority in order for these cases to be officially closed once and for all.”

The full collection of these documents is open for consultation through the Geneva-based law firm CMS Von Erlach Poncet.

The IRU, through its 170 member associations in 74 countries, is the world road transport organisation, which upholds the interests of bus, coach, taxi and truck operators to ensure economic growth and prosperity via the sustainable mobility of people and goods by road worldwide.