{"id":8520,"date":"2026-09-29T13:07:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/explore\/\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T13:07:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:07:42","slug":"the-origin-file-when-a-tariff-change-becomes-a-trade-defence-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/kesfetmek\/the-origin-file-when-a-tariff-change-becomes-a-trade-defence-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Origin File: When a Tariff Change Becomes a Trade Defence Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most companies treat origin as a documentation task. In both Turkish and EU law it becomes a duty and measures problem the moment a tariff position changes. The two systems respond to that moment in opposite directions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When an exporter relocates a production step, or when an importer’s declared tariff position is reassessed on inspection, the first question asked is usually documentary. Is the correct certificate of origin on file. The question is necessary and it postpones the real issue. Origin is the connecting point that determines which duty rate, which trade policy measure and which additional financial charge an item attracts. A missing document does not sever that connection. It changes only when the consequence becomes visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court of Justice of the European Union addressed that connection on 21 November 2024, through a company’s own published statements. Turkish law addressed the same connection in the Customs Regulation amendment of 15 January 2025, by writing it directly into the text. Both instruments deal with the same event and respond to it differently. This article places them side by side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the Harley-Davidson file established<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The dispute arose from a straightforward sequence. The European Union imposed retaliatory duties on motorcycles of United States origin. The manufacturer moved assembly for the Union market from the United States to Thailand and obtained binding origin information decisions recording Thai origin. The Commission revoked those decisions, and the dispute reached the Court of Justice, which decided it in Case C-297\/23 P by judgment of the Fourth Chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two provisions operate together here, and the division of labour between them is frequently missed. Article 60(2) of the Union Customs Code provides that goods whose production involves more than one country are deemed to originate where they underwent their last, substantial, economically justified processing or working, in an undertaking equipped for that purpose, resulting in a new product or representing an important stage of manufacture. The economic justification requirement appears in the text of that article itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article 33 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015\/2446 then defines when that requirement is treated as unmet. Where it is established on the basis of the available facts that the purpose of an operation was to avoid the application of the measures referred to in Article 59 of the Code, the operation is deemed not to be economically justified. Once that finding is made, origin is determined under the residual rules rather than the primary rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice the distinction means this. Article 60(2) describes where origin is acquired. Article 33 supplies the test for whether that acquisition counts. An operation can be substantial for the purposes of Article 60(2) and still confer no origin because of Article 33.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court clarified three points. The purpose of a relocation is established objectively from the available facts rather than through an inquiry into subjective intention. Where the evidence shows that avoidance of a trade measure was a decisive factor, the burden shifts to the company to demonstrate that the decision was driven by economic efficiency. Where that burden is not discharged, origin falls back to the residual position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most instructive feature of the file lies in the evidence rather than the legal analysis. The company’s public investor filing expressly linked the relocation to duty avoidance. What triggered scrutiny was not material gathered by an opposing party. It was a document the company published itself. A company closed off its own origin claim through its own statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second lesson sits in the instrument at the centre of the dispute. The company held binding origin information decisions, which by their nature bind the administration and give the holder predictability. Those decisions were revoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Binding origin information is widely treated as a closed file. The decision has been obtained, origin has been confirmed, the matter is settled. In fact such a decision holds for as long as the factual assessment underlying it remains valid. When that assessment is called into question, so is the decision. Binding origin information confirms the facts as they stood when it was issued. It is not insurance against facts that develop afterwards, and that distinction matters most for companies that alter their production structure after the decision was obtained.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The moment Article 38 splits in two<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Turkish law reaches the same event from a different point. The regulation amending the Customs Regulation, published in Resm\u00ee Gazete of 15 January 2025, issue 32783, entered into force on the date of publication and added two new paragraphs to Article 38. Both paragraphs describe the same trigger for declarations unaccompanied by a certificate of origin, and separate the consequence according to when the inspection occurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trigger is common to both. The tariff statistical position of the goods covered by the declaration changes, and as a result of that change the goods are found to be subject to a duty difference arising from the higher rate applied to non-members of the World Trade Organization in the lists annexed to the Import Regime Decision, to origin-based trade policy measures, to additional customs duty, or to other financial obligations such as an additional fiscal charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paragraph 4 covers inspections carried out before customs procedures are complete and refers the matter to the procedure in the second paragraph of the same article. Paragraph 5 covers inspections carried out after customs procedures are complete and gives the obligor six months from the date of the finding to present an appropriate certificate of origin to the customs administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distinction is decisive in practice. Where the issue surfaces while the goods remain with the administration, the process runs within the existing procedure. Where it surfaces after release into free circulation, the company gains a defined period in which to obtain documentation retrospectively. Six months appears generous. The period runs from the date of the finding, and the finding may precede the moment the company learns of it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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COMPANY A<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Company A is a Turkish manufacturer supplying components to customers in Europe. Part of its input has long been sourced from a third country. An EU trade policy measure is imposed in respect of that country, and the company considers moving the relevant processing step to its facility in T\u00fcrkiye.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision is commercially defensible. Transport costs will fall, lead times will shorten and customer proximity will improve. The company discusses these grounds in internal correspondence. In its investment board presentation and in the notice sent to customers, however, it states the decision in its most intelligible form: to avoid the effect of the new measure.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because that sentence appears in the presentation and the customer notice, it takes first place in any inquiry seeking to establish the purpose of the relocation objectively. The company’s cost and logistics grounds are real, but they stayed in internal correspondence while the measure rationale led the external account. When the burden shifts, the company finds itself constructing a defence that contradicts the most accessible document it produced.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What the Customs Union settles, and what it does not<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

For Turkish companies a further layer applies. The Customs Union established by Association Council Decision 1\/95, operating since 1 January 1996, places industrial goods including automotive products into free circulation between T\u00fcrkiye and the EU. T\u00fcrkiye aligned its external tariff schedule with the Common External Tariff for trade with third countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free circulation governs the right of goods to cross the border without customs duty. It does not settle the origin question. That goods enter free circulation through T\u00fcrkiye does not make T\u00fcrkiye their origin, and does not mean origin-based measures fall away. The Customs Union is a circulation regime. Origin is a determination of character. Conflating the two produces a recurring error, particularly for items processed in T\u00fcrkiye from third country inputs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distinction becomes concrete where trade policy measures are involved. An anti-dumping measure applied by the EU to an item of third country origin does not disappear because the item is shipped through T\u00fcrkiye, unless the processing carried out in T\u00fcrkiye is sufficient. Turkish safeguard measures likewise apply on an origin basis, and some of them are specific to particular countries of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three documents, three different questions<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Much of the confusion arises because documents answering different questions are used interchangeably. Three are routinely treated as components of a single function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The A.TR movement certificate shows that goods hold free circulation status within the Customs Union. It does not state where the goods were produced and was never designed to. Goods of third country origin may complete import formalities in T\u00fcrkiye, enter free circulation and be shipped to the EU under an A.TR. The certificate then states the position accurately. The goods genuinely are in free circulation. Origin has not changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EUR.1 movement certificate, or an invoice declaration, evidences preferential origin under a particular preferential arrangement. It is issued against the origin rules of that arrangement and takes effect only within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The certificate of origin evidences non-preferential origin, and for trade policy measures this is the determinative document. It is also the document Article 38 requires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confusion between the three runs in more than one direction. A company holding an A.TR may believe it has addressed origin, when it has addressed circulation status. A company holding a preferential origin document may assume it is covered for non-preferential purposes, when the two rule sets apply different thresholds, and goods may hold non-preferential origin in a country where they do not hold preferential origin, or the reverse. A deficient file is often not a file missing a document. It is a file in which the wrong document was taken for the right one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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COMPANY B<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Company B is an international manufacturer importing regularly into T\u00fcrkiye. It has declared one product group under the same tariff position for years. The declarations were accepted, the duties paid and the goods released into free circulation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a subsequent inspection the administration concludes that the technical characteristics of the product require classification under a different position. The new position attracts different treatment in the lists annexed to the Import Regime Decision and gives rise to an additional obligation by reference to the country of origin. No certificate of origin accompanies the declarations, because none was required under the former position.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has six months from the date of the finding to present an appropriate certificate. The difficulty lies elsewhere. The party that must issue the document is the foreign supplier holding the records for shipments made three years earlier, and that commercial relationship has since ended. The period runs as a matter of law. The relationship capable of producing the document has ceased to exist.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Why trade policy measures belong in this file<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

One phrase in the text of Article 38 establishes the link between origin and trade policy expressly: origin-based trade policy measures. Trade policy measures include anti-dumping measures, countervailing measures and safeguard measures. A change of tariff position, combined with an absent certificate of origin, can therefore expose a company not only to a duty difference but to a trade policy measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not a theoretical possibility. As at 30 July 2026 T\u00fcrkiye maintained eleven safeguard measures in force, covering products from float glass and polyester fibre to wire rod and PET resin. Some apply to specific countries of origin and others apply to all countries. Over the same period, on the EU side, the anti-dumping measures in force since 2021 on hot-rolled flat steel of Turkish origin became the subject of an expiry review initiated on 6 July 2026, with the measures remaining in force while the review proceeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read together, the position is that origin-based measures are being applied actively to goods entering T\u00fcrkiye and to goods leaving it. The moment a company’s origin file touches any of those measures, it stops being a documentary matter and becomes a direct cost item.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two structural features of the Turkish safeguard measures make the exposure calculation different from what companies commonly assume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the rate does not hold constant across the life of the measure. It steps down. On float glass the rate begins at 36 United States dollars per tonne and moves to 35 and then 34 in the following years. On toothbrushes it begins at 0.13 dollars per unit and moves to 0.11 and then 0.09. On polyester fibre of Iranian origin it begins at 17 percent and moves to 16.5 and then 16. A company modelling exposure on the first year rate overstates the later years, and one working from an average understates the opening year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, measures outlive their nominal terms by a considerable margin. The float glass measure has been in force since 11 December 2015 and runs to 2027 on its third extension. The measure on polyester fibre of Iranian origin began on 21 September 2013 and is also on a third extension. The measure on toothbrushes has been running since 2018 and is on its second. Supply planning that treats a safeguard as a three year problem meets a reality extending beyond a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quotas reserved for developing countries sit alongside this. World Trade Organization rules exempt developing countries falling below defined thresholds from safeguard measures, and T\u00fcrkiye administers that exemption through separate quotas. Which country a supply chain draws from therefore determines not only price but whether a measure applies at all.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Two systems, opposite postures<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

At this point the responses of the two legal systems diverge, and the divergence is instructive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the EU side origin is redetermined where an avoidance purpose is found to be decisive. The company cannot resolve the position by producing a document, because the problem was never framed as an absent document. The problem is that the operation is not recognised as conferring origin, and the consequence is a move to the residual rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Turkish side the problem is framed precisely as an absent document, and the response is to allow time to obtain one. Origin is not redetermined. The presentation of an appropriate certificate of origin is awaited. The six month period is, in legal terms, an opportunity to cure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That contrast means the same company must prepare differently on each side. On the EU side preparation consists of documenting the economic rationale of a relocation and of the production structure contemporaneously and consistently. On the Turkish side preparation consists of having collected proof of origin documents while supplier relationships were still live. In one case what is defended is a decision. In the other what is defended is a record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building the file in advance<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In both scenarios the determining factor is what was accumulated beforehand rather than what is done afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first element concerns the justification of investment and relocation decisions. Where a production step moves at a point close in time to the entry into force of a trade measure, the economic basis for the decision should be recorded as the decision is taken. Cost comparisons, capacity analyses, lead time calculations and customer requirements filed at the moment of decision constitute a rationale. The same documents assembled after an inquiry has begun bring with them the question of why they were assembled then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second element concerns consistency between the external account and the internal rationale. As the Harley-Davidson file shows, a company’s public statements are the most accessible evidence available to an investigating authority. Investor filings, customer notices, press statements and corporate presentations should say the same thing as the internal correspondence. A relocation decision may well rest on both efficiency and the measure. Where only the second is communicated externally, only the second survives in the record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third element concerns collecting proof of origin while the relationship lasts. Company B’s position shows that the problem is not the absence of a document but the absence of access to the party that would issue it. Placing an obligation in supplier contracts to provide origin information and supporting records for a defined period after the relationship ends addresses a risk that no subsequent effort can repair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth element concerns keeping tariff classification with the file. Where classification is treated as a decision taken once and then forgotten, a later change of position finds the company unprepared. Recording the technical characteristics on which the classification was based, the binding information or opinion it relied on, and the date and source of its last confirmation gives the company a starting point when the position is opened up.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Who holds the file<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Every one of those measures is achievable. They go undone not because they are difficult but because the file has no owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The origin file sits where three functions intersect and at the centre of none of them. Customs brokerage prepares the declaration but takes the underlying information from the company and does not examine how it was produced. Procurement runs the supplier relationship and requests origin information when needed, without defining it as a delivery obligation when the contract is formed. Legal generally sees the file once a dispute has arisen, and by then the available material consists of records kept by others for other purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is not a continuously maintained file but a set of fragments held in three places, none of them complete. When a problem arises, assembling those fragments takes time, and the act of assembling them demonstrates that the file was not held ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What works in practice is straightforward. A single function is designated as the owner of the origin file, what the other two must supply to it and at what stage is set down in writing, and the file is reviewed at regular intervals rather than when a dispute is anticipated. The cost of that arrangement is low. The cost of its absence becomes visible only once a tariff position is opened up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question worth asking now<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In most companies the origin file sits as a technical heading delegated to customs brokerage. That allocation is defensible in itself, but it shifts once the question the file has to answer is made explicit. The origin file is not a collection of documents. It is the only account the company will have when its tariff position is opened up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the question worth asking is this. If a shipment made three years ago were assessed today under a different tariff position, which document could the company produce and within what period, and would that document say the same thing as the statements the company was making externally at the time? Where the answer is yes, the six month period is a genuine opportunity. Where it is no, the period is an interval in which the outcome is merely deferred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article reflects legislation in force and publicly available judgments as at September 2026. Company A and Company B are composite illustrations constructed from publicly documented fact patterns and do not describe identifiable persons or matters. This article is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice on any specific matter.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most companies treat origin as a documentation task. In both Turkish and EU law it becomes a duty and measures … Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-trade","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8527,"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8520\/revisions\/8527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/herdemlaw.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}