Action brought on 10 June 2008 — EuroChem MCC v Council

(Case T-234/08)

(2008/C 209/105)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: EuroChem Mineral and Chemical Company OAO (EuroChem MCC) (Moscow, Russia) (represented by: P. Vander Schueren and B. Evtimov, lawyers)

Defendant: Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant, a Russian producer and exporter of solutions of urea and ammonium nitrate, seeks the annulment, pursuant to Article 230 EC, of Council Regulation (EC) No 38/2008 (1) (‘the contested regulation’).

In support of its application, the applicant puts forward one main ground for annulment, subdivided in three limbs. The applicant submits that the Community institutions wrongly established the normal value for the applicant, leading to its artificial increase; carried out a wrong comparison with the export price and hence reached an erroneous finding of dumping, thereby breaching Articles 1 and 2 of the Basic Regulation (2), while committing a series of manifest errors of assessment and violating fundamental principles of Community law. These breaches directly led, according to the applicant, to the unwarranted termination of the interim review without amendment of the anti-dumping measure with respect to the applicant.

More specifically, the applicant claims, on the basis of its first plea, that the Community institutions erred in law and violated Article 2(3) and (5) of the Basic Regulation, by disregarding a major part of the applicant's costs of production as being unreliable and/or by de facto applying a non-market economy methodology for establishing the major part of the applicant's normal value.

On the basis of its second plea, the applicant claims that the Commission, once having decided to proceed with the gas adjustment, violated Article 2(5), second sentence, of the Basic Regulation and/or made a manifest error of appreciation. Moreover, the applicant argues that the Commission showed lack of reasoning by implementing the gas adjustment on the basis of the intra-community price of gas at Waidhaus Germany and by failing to deduct from the amount of adjustment the 30 % Russian export duty on Russian gas.

On the basis of its third plea, the applicant contends that the Community institutions violated Article 2(10) of the Basic Regulation and made a manifest error of assessment of the facts by deducting from the applicant's export price the first independent customer selling, general and administrative expenses and commission in respect of related companies, which are general parts of the applicant's single economic entity and integrated sales department.

(1)  Council Regulation (EC) No 238/2008 of 10 March 2008 terminating the partial interim review pursuant to Article 11(3) of Regulation (EC) No 384/96 of the anti-dumping duty on imports of solutions of urea and ammonium nitrate originating in Russia (OJ 2008 L 75, p. 14).

(2)  Council Regulation (EC) No 384/96 of 22 December 1995 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Community (OJ 1996 L 56, p. 1).