London furniture retailer first to be fined in UK under EUTR

Angora 2011 Limited, trading as Lombok, was convicted and fined £5,000 plus costs under the EU Timber Regulation after pleading guilty at an October 25 hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court.

The company failed to exercise the required due diligence when placing an artisan sideboard on the market, imported on June 1, 2016 from India.

A previous breach of the relevant regulations had earlier been identified and led to a Notice of Remedial Action being served on Lombok on April 28, 2015; this was followed by a warning letter dated October 7, 2015 when the company failed to comply with the notice.

On 20 October 2016, officers visited Lombok’s central London showroom and found the required due diligence checks had not been made for an artisan sideboard for sale that had been imported from India.

When convicting the company the district judge stated the offences were “important”, addressing environmental concerns, biodiversity concerns, and public confidence that companies do not endanger those. Companies are required to mitigate the risk of illegal logging.

The judge said Lombok had failed to exercise due diligence when importing the artisan sideboard, with their previous failures an aggravating feature, though in mitigation they had reacted proactively.

Taking into account their mitigation and credit for an early guilty plea, Lombok was fined £5,000, plus a victim surcharge of £170 and prosecution costs of £2,951. The total of £8,121 was ordered to be paid within 28 days.

“The Government’s Regulatory Delivery team will take action against businesses that persistently, deliberately or recklessly fail to meet their legal obligations,” said Mike Kearney, head of Regulatory Delivery Enforcement.

“Lombok failed to change their practises in response to our advice and so, given the impact of illegal logging, a criminal prosecution was appropriate. I am pleased that Lombok is now improving its supply chain monitoring.”

This prosecution was brought by the Insolvency Service Criminal Enforcement Team on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Regulatory Delivery team.