European AD Duties Don't Discriminate Against Goods Already Subject to Tariff Quotas, EU Court Says

The European Union General Court dismissed a case brought by Russian steel company Novolipetsk Steel, holding in an Oct. 20 order that antidumping duties don't discriminate against goods that are subject to existing safeguard measures. Novolipetsk challenged the commission's antidumping duties on hot-rolled flat products of iron, non-alloy or other alloy steel and cold-rolled flat steel products from Russia. The commission had also established safeguard measures that applied tariff quotas for 26 categories of steel products, including the HRF and CRF goods.

Novolipetsk levied two claims against these actions: that the imposition of the antidumping duties discriminates against its imports given the already-existing safeguard measures and that the commission made an error in judging the "appropriateness" of the antidumping duties. On the second claim, Novolipetsk criticized the fact that the AD duties apply to the HRF and CRF goods until the tariff quotas are exhausted, since the establishment of those quotas already gives effects that are greater than intended in the EU's trade defense policy, when combined with the antidumping duties.

After looking at the data, the General Court found this contention to be incorrect. "It is thus apparent from an examination of the statistical data provided and discussed by the parties that the effects alleged by the applicant have not been proved to the requisite legal standard. Accordingly, the applicant cannot reasonably argue that those data show that effects greater than intended in terms of the European Union’s trade defence policy and objectives arose from when the definitive safeguard measures entered into force, irrespective of the application of the above-quota duty, with the result that the measures suspending the anti-dumping duties adopted in the context of the contested regulation should not have been made conditional on the exhaustion of the quotas."

With regard to the commission's ability to impose both antidumping duties and tariff rate quotas, the General Court again sided with the commission, holding that existence of both sets of measures does not discriminate against Novolipetsk's imports."Even if [Novolipetsk's] approach were followed, namely that the regulation relating to the combined effect must be interpreted in the light of the basic anti-dumping regulation, and in particular Article 9(5) of that regulation, it would not be possible to identify discriminatory treatment of imports of the applicant’s relevant products as a result of the application of the contested regulation," the opinion said. "Moreover, in the absence of discrimination, the applicant’s arguments relating, first, to the classification of the measures put in place by the contested regulation and, second, to the Commission’s competence to adopt those measures are irrelevant."