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Trade Marks Act 2002

Legal proceedings - Border protection measures - Enforcement powers of Customs officers

155B: Chief executive may require person to produce documents concerning goods in control of Customs

You could also call this:

"Customs boss can ask for papers about stuff they're watching"

The chief executive of Customs can ask you to show documents about goods they control if they think those goods might have been brought into the country against the rules. They can ask you to do this if you brought the goods in or if you helped someone else bring them in.

When they ask you to show documents, they must give you a special notice. This notice will tell you which Customs officer you need to show the documents to, and when and where you need to show them. They can give you this notice in different ways, like handing it to you, sending it in the mail, faxing it, or even emailing it to you.

If they email you the notice, they'll assume you got it two working days after they sent it, unless you can prove you didn't.

When you show the documents to the Customs officer, they can look at them, take notes from them, or make copies of them.

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This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM4124762.

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Part 4Legal proceedings
Border protection measures: Enforcement powers of Customs officers

155BChief executive may require person to produce documents concerning goods in control of Customs

  1. If a Customs officer believes on reasonable grounds that goods in the control of the Customs have been imported in breach of this Act, the chief executive may, by notice in writing, require any person whom the Customs officer believes to have imported the goods, or any person whom the Customs officer believes to have acted as agent of that person, to produce to a Customs officer for inspection any specified document or class of documents in the person's possession or control that the Customs officer considers relevant to determining whether the goods should be seized under section 155A or released.

  2. A notice under this section requiring a person to produce any document must—

  3. be in the prescribed form; and
    1. specify the Customs officer to whom the person must produce the document; and
      1. specify a reasonable time and place at which the document must be produced; and
        1. be served on the person—
          1. by delivering it to him or her in person; or
            1. by posting it to the person's address or delivering it to a box at a document exchange that the person is using at the time; or
              1. by sending it by fax machine to a telephone number used by the person for the transmission of documents by fax; or
                1. if the person is a registered user of a registered user system (within the meaning of section 322 of the Customs and Excise Act 2018), transmitting it by electronic means to the person in accordance with the normal procedure of operation of the registered user system in relation to that person.
                  1. by emailing it to the person at an email address that is used by the person.

                  2. In the absence of proof to the contrary, a notice that is emailed to a person must be treated as served on the person on the second working day after the date on which it is emailed, and, in proving that the notice was emailed, it is sufficient to prove that the notice was properly addressed and sent to the email address.

                  3. A Customs officer to whom a document is produced for inspection may do 1 or more of the following:

                  4. inspect the document:
                    1. take extracts from the document:
                      1. make copies of the document.

                        Notes
                        • Section 155B: inserted, on , by section 23 of the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 71).
                        • Section 155B(2)(d)(iv): replaced, on , by section 443(3) of the Customs and Excise Act 2018 (2018 No 4).
                        • Section 155B(2)(d)(v): inserted, on , by section 79(2) of the Electronic Interactions Reform Act 2017 (2017 No 50).
                        • Section 155B(2A): inserted, on , by section 79(3) of the Electronic Interactions Reform Act 2017 (2017 No 50).