UT/2023/000023 - [2024] UKUT 00096 (TCC)

The key error Cozy Pet raises (under its Grounds 8 and 9) concerns the FTT’s interpretation of the HSEN to 7314 (see [62] above). Mr Blades submits the FTT wrongly interpreted the HSEN as excluding goods which had been fashioned into a finished product by a manufacturing process, thereby impermissibly narrowing the scope of the classification. That led the FTT to take an extremely narrow definition of the term “fencing” that was specifically mentioned in 7314 which diverged from the ordinary meaning of that word. Fencing could cover a single fencing panel. The panel did not stop being regarded as “fencing” because it was supplied in a final form.

Ms Brown submits the FTT was right to analyse the HSEN as not extending to finished products. Fencing in this context had to be read ejusdem generis with grill and netting. The articles mentioned were all used in a finished product but were not the finished product themselves.