Commentaries: Art. 49a

The FOCBS shall detain items if the consignment is small and:
1. if, as a result of an application for assistance in accordance with Article 47 paragraph 1, it has grounds to suspect that the items intended to be brought into or taken out of the customs territory were unlawfully manufactured; and
2. an application for the destruction of small consignments (Art. 47 para. 2 let. b) has been submitted.
It may transfer responsibility for conducting the further procedure to the IPI.
The competent authority shall provide the declarant, holder or owner of the items with notification of the suspicion and of the detained items and inform him that the items will be destroyed if he does not expressly object to the destruction within ten working days of receiving this notification.
If the declarant, holder or owner expressly objects to the destruction within the time limit specified in paragraph 3, the competent authority shall notify the applicant accordingly. The further procedure shall be governedmutatis mutandis by Articles 48 paragraphs 3 and 4, 48a , 48b and 49.
If the declarant, holder or owner agrees to the destruction or does not give an opinion within the time limit referred to in paragraph 3, the competent authority shall destroy the items at the applicant’s expense no earlier than three months after the notification specified in paragraph 3 or hand them over to the applicant for destruction if the applicant has requested this in accordance with Article 47 paragraph 3. Claims for damages by the applicant against the declarant, holder or owner are excluded.
The competent authority shall provide the applicant with information about the quantity and type of items destroyed in accordance with paragraph 5 and about the senders, whether inside or outside Switzerland.