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Court recalls the Commission’s broad discretion in conducting anti-dumping investigations

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Inicio Perspectivas Court recalls the Commission’s broad discretion in conducting anti-dumping investigations
On 20 January 2022, the Court of the Justice issued its judgement in Hubei Xinyegang Special Tube (C-891/19 P). In essence, the Court recalled the European Commission’s broad discretion in conducting anti-dumping (AD) investigations and, thus, annulled the General Court’s ruling, which had found that the Commission had violated the EU Basic AD Regulation and that the regulation imposing AD duties challenged by a Chinese producer were invalid, in so far as it concerned the producer.

Autores: Jin Woo Kim

Background

In February 2016, the Commission initiated an AD investigation on imports of certain seamless pipes and tubes of iron or steel from China. In May 2017, the Commission adopted the regulation imposing definitive AD duties on Chinese imports which was set at 54.9% for Hubei Xinyegang (Xinyegang). In August 2017, Xinyegang sought the annulment of AD duties before the General Court, arguing that the Commission failed to take into account certain segmentation of the market of the product and certain volume of the product in its price undercutting analysis. In September 2019, the General Court agreed with Xinyegang, and ruled that the Commission failed to take account of all the relevant factors in its price undercutting analysis, in breach of the EU Basic AD Regulation. Thus, the General Court annulled the regulation imposing AD duties, in so far as it concerned Xinyegang. However, the Commission appealed the General Court ruling, asserting, in essence, that: (i) it was not required to carry out a price undertaking analysis by market segment, and the product control number (PCN) method, which is PCN-by-PCN comparison, was appropriate to take account of the market segmentation; (ii) the General Court misinterpreted Article 3(2) and (3) of the EU Basic AD Regulation; and (iii) the General Court applied an excessively strict standard of judicial review.

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