The British government faces a €2bn (£1.7bn) fine for negligence that allowed criminal gangs to flood European black markets with illegal Chinese goods, EU anti-fraud investigators have said. The EU’s 28 member states belong to a customs union, where a common tariff is levied on imports from outside the bloc. Anti-fraud investigators said they had repeatedly warned British customs officials about the scale of the fraud. A senior French anti-fraud investigator said the UK had mostly not responded to requests to trace goods. Asked whether the UK would pay a fine, Theresa May’s official spokesman said: “We’ve not received a bill from the European Commission.

Source: The Guardian March 08, 2017 11:31 UTC