Case C‑84/15

Sonos Europe BV

v

Staatssecretaris van Financiën

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden)

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 — Customs union and Common Customs Tariff — Tariff classification — Combined Nomenclature — Headings 8517, 8518, 8519, 8527 and 8543 — Stand-alone device designed to retrieve, receive and stream digital audio files in the form of amplified sound’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Tenth Chamber), 17 March 2016

Customs union — Common Customs Tariff — Tariff headings — Stand-alone device designed to retrieve, receive and stream digital audio files in the form of amplified sound — Classification under heading 8519 of the Combined Nomenclature — Assessment by the referring court

(Council Regulation No 2658/87, as amended by Regulations No 1031/2008 and No 948/2009, Annex I, heading 8519)

The Combined Nomenclature listed in Annex I to Regulation No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff, in the version resulting, successively, from Regulation No 1031/2008 and Regulation No 948/2009, must be interpreted as meaning that a stand-alone device designed to retrieve, receive and stream digital audio files in the form of amplified sound, must, subject to the referring court’s assessment of all of the facts which it has available to it, be classified under tariff heading 8519 of that nomenclature.

In that regard, the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System Explanatory Notes relating to heading 8519 state that ‘generally’ sound is recorded onto or reproduced from an internal storage device or media, which does not exclude other sources. Accordingly, the mere fact that the source of the sound does not come from an internal storage device does not exclude classification of that product under that heading. Consequently, the sound reproduction function of a stand-alone device designed to retrieve, receive and stream digital audio files in the form of amplified sound cannot be called into question on the basis of the fact that the source of the sound which it reproduces is the internet or another device with which it shares a local network or a device to which it is connected by a cable. In addition, the intended use of a product may constitute an objective criterion for classification if it is inherent in the product, and that inherent character must be capable of being assessed on the basis of the product’s objective characteristics and properties.

(see paras 42, 43, 48, operative part)