European Union – Customs and excise. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Council Directive (EEC) 92/12 had to be interpreted as precluding national legislation under which an authorised warehousekeeper was declared jointly and severally liable for payment of sums corresponding to the financial penalties imposed for the commission of an offence, with no possibility to escape that liability by providing proof that he had nothing to do with the acts of the perpetrators of the offence, even if that warehousekeeper was neither the owner of those products nor linked to the perpetrators by a contractual relationship.