EU court rules against Britain in China customs fraud case

BRUSSELS, March 8 (Reuters) - The European Union's top court ruled against Britain on Tuesday after a complaint from the EU executive that it had allowed billions of euros to leak from the EU budget by failing to collect appropriate duties on Chinese imports.

The European Commission, which has brought the case against Britain, says the EU budget lost 2.7 billion euros ($2.9 billion) from 2011 to 2017. It complained that importers into Britain evaded a large amount of customs duties with false invoices and artificially low value declarations for Chinese textiles and footwear. ($1 = 0.9170 euros) (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Francesco Guarascio)