Copyright Act 1994

Border protection measures - Enforcement powers of Customs officers

144A: Chief executive may require person to produce documents concerning goods in control of Customs

You could also call this:

"Customs can ask you to show documents if they think your imported goods break the law"

If you import goods that a Customs officer thinks break the law, the chief executive can ask you to show them certain documents. The chief executive will send you a notice asking for these documents. You must get this notice in a certain form and it must say which Customs officer to give the documents to. If you get a notice, it might be delivered to you in person, or sent to you by post, fax, or email. There are rules about how the notice is sent to you. For example, if it is emailed to you, it is treated as received on the second working day after it was sent. When you give the documents to the Customs officer, they can look at them, take copies, or make notes from them. This helps the officer decide what to do with the goods you imported. They might be looking at whether the goods should be seized under section 144 or released. You can also be asked to produce documents if you acted as an agent for the person who imported the goods. The Customs officer can use a registered user system to send you the notice.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM4127262.

This page was last updated on 3 December 2025 — View changes

Topics:

Money and consumer rights > Consumer protectionBusiness > Industry rules

144: Customs officer may seize goods in control of Customs, or

"Customs officers can take goods that might be against the law"

144B: Chief executive may require person to appear and answer questions concerning goods in control of Customs, or

"Chief executive can ask you to answer questions about goods that might break the law"

Part 7Border protection measures
Enforcement powers of Customs officers

144AChief executive may require person to produce documents concerning goods in control of Customs

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 144 or released.
A notice under this section requiring a person to produce any document must—
be in the prescribed form; and
specify the Customs officer to whom the person must produce the document; and
specify a reasonable time and place at which the document must be produced; and
be served on the person by—
1. delivering it to him or her in person; or
2. 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
3. sending it by fax machine to a telephone number used by the person for the transmission of documents by fax; or
4. 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.
5. emailing it to the person at an email address that is used by the person.

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.
A Customs officer to whom a document is produced for inspection may do 1 or more of the following:
inspect the document:
take extracts from the document:
make copies of the document.

Notes

Section 144A: inserted, on 7 October 2011, by section 10 of the Copyright Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 72).
Section 144A(2)(d)(iv): replaced, on 1 October 2018, by section 443(3) of the Customs and Excise Act 2018 (2018 No 4).
Section 144A(2)(d)(v): inserted, on 16 December 2017, by section 55(2) of the Electronic Interactions Reform Act 2017 (2017 No 50).
Section 144A(2A): inserted, on 16 December 2017, by section 55(3) of the Electronic Interactions Reform Act 2017 (2017 No 50).