Two Member State authorities have issued fines upholding the EU Timber Regulation requirement for proper documentation indicating that the timber put on the EU market is legally sourced.
In November 2016 the Netherlands, for the first time, issued a company with a suspended fine of EUR 1800 per m3 of imported illegally sourced timber. During the course of repeated inspections, the Dutch Government found the company Fibois VB Purmerned documentation not to be in order; the company had been issued a warning (FW214), stating that the company had had enough time to improve its practice.
Fibois imports roughly 400 m3 of Azobe timber from Cameroon every month. Hence, the fine could reach some EUR 720,000 per month. Among other sources, Fibois imports from CCT, a company proven to be involved in illegal logging; Fibois denies selling illegally sourced timber (Source: Fout met Hout uit Kameroen; Trouw, 19 November 2016).
In Sweden, on 15 November 2016, Swedish Administrative Courts upheld an October decision by the Swedish EUTR regulator that documentation issued by the Myanmar Forest Products Merchants’ Federation (MFPMF) failed to provide essential information and did not constitute adequate proof that the timber had been legally harvested. The teak importer, Almtra Nordic, was fined 17,000 Swedish kronor (about $1,700) and stated that it will not import wood from Myanmar in future.
Category: Illegal logging