The Concept of Customs Representation and Its Legal Basis
Customs brokerage is an institution regulated by Articles 14 and 15 of the Customs Code of Georgia: a person has the right to conduct relations with the customs authority through a legal representative or an authorized representative. During transportation, declaration or other customs formalities, the figure of the declarant may thus be replaced by the figure of a representative, and the law regulates this substitution through a dedicated procedure.
A customs representative is defined as a person who, on the assignment of another person, performs in relations with the customs authority the actions and customs formalities provided for by Georgian customs legislation. In practice this institution forms the legal core of the customs broker's work: professional knowledge of customs procedures is applied in the client's name or on the client's assignment.
Legal and Authorized Representatives
The law distinguishes two grounds of representation. A legal representative of a physical person is a person who exercises the corresponding power on the basis of Georgian legislation; in that case every obligation and responsibility of the physical person provided for by the Code is imposed on the legal representative — a full transfer, not a sharing.
The institution of the authorized representative rests on the power of attorney. A person other than a physical person is represented by an authorized representative acting on the basis of a power of attorney issued by that person, while an authorized representative of a physical person acts on the basis of a power of attorney issued by that physical person and confirmed by notarial procedure. The notarial form is mandatory here with respect to physical persons, creating for the customs authority a guarantee of the reliability of the authority.
Direct and Indirect Representatives
The representative is of two kinds. A direct representative acts in the name of another person and on that person's assignment — before the customs authority the client appears in person, and the broker acts in the client's name. An indirect representative acts in its own name but on the assignment of another person — outwardly the customs authority deals with the broker, although the economic interest belongs to the principal.
This distinction is also decisive for the distribution of responsibility: in performing a customs formality an indirect representative bears the same responsibility as would be borne by the person giving the corresponding assignment. A territorial requirement deserves separate note: the representative must be a person established in Georgia, although this is not mandatory for representation connected with the procedures of transit or temporary import.