Poland is demanding hundreds of millions of euros in customs duties, VAT, anti-dumping levies, penalties and accumulated interest from European rail and logistics companies over import fraud that Polish authorities themselves failed to detect at the border — and in some cases the claims exceed the total assets of the targeted firms.

Four industry associations — CER, CLECAT (the European Association of Freight Forwarding, Transport and Customs Services), FIATA (the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations) and UIRR, the combined transport association — appealed to the European Commission in a joint letter in August for urgent intervention. In the letter, they argue that Polish authorities are pursuing market parties, including rail companies, as jointly liable for fraudulent acts committed by their customers.

The trigger was an EU investigation that retrospectively found particular rail imports moving through Małaszewicze between 2021 and 2026 were fraudulent. Polish authorities had originally scanned and cleared those shipments themselves. One case cited in the letter involved e-bikes declared as spinning bikes to evade anti-dumping duties — a misdeclaration that only surfaced years after the initial customs procedure.

The responsible importers and warehouse operators in the reported cases are no longer traceable or financially solvent, so Poland cannot recover duties, VAT, anti-dumping levies or penalties from them. Polish authorities have instead concluded that supply chain participants are jointly liable, and are now pursuing freight forwarders, railway undertakings, border agents, temporary storage authorisation holders and customs agents. CLECAT reports that Poland is also demanding years of accumulated interest, and that in some cases the total claimed compensation exceeds the value of the company's assets.

Legal certainty at stake

Poland is proceeding regardless of whether the targeted companies had any ability to detect the fraud, the signatories write. They consider this a threat to companies' ability to operate with legal certainty, and argue the Commission must intervene to protect logistics operators.

The total exposure across the sector runs into hundreds of millions of euros, according to CLECAT. Several companies risk insolvency before Polish courts have even examined their cases. Appeals can take up to five years, CLECAT adds.

The associations warn of a wider operational consequence: few, if any, customs service providers would remain willing to make customs declarations at the EU's external borders without Commission intervention. The result would be severe congestion at those borders — a direct capacity risk for the rail freight corridors running through Małaszewicze, the main entry point for Chinese container traffic into Europe on the China–Europe rail route.

A question of responsibility

At stake, the associations argue, is the fundamental allocation of responsibility between market operators and public authorities. Market operators currently manage logistics and paperwork, while public authorities are responsible for verification and enforcement.

"If this division is altered after the fact because the actual perpetrators are no longer accessible, European logistics companies will struggle to manage, price, or insure against liability risks for fraudulent acts they lacked the legal authority or means to identify", the associations write in their letter.

In effect, Poland's approach assigns liability to whichever business remains solvent, solely because it is still reachable within the EU, the signatories conclude. That standard would expose every freight forwarder, railway undertaking and customs agent handling EU-bound rail imports to retrospective liability for verification failures committed by the authorities that cleared the goods.

For rail operators serving the Małaszewicze corridor, the immediate financial risk is concentrated in the 2021–2026 import window already identified by the EU investigation. The industry's appeal to the Commission now awaits a response, and the outcome will determine whether the liability for those fraudulent shipments stays with the Polish state that cleared them or spreads across the private supply chain that moved them.