Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Actions for annulment ° Actions directed against a regulation finding that a price undertaking had been breached and imposing a provisional anti-dumping duty ° Subsequent adoption of a regulation imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty ° Consequences for a party' s interest in bringing proceedings

(EC Treaty, Art. 173; Council Regulation No 2423/88, Art. 10(6))

Summary

When the amounts secured by way of provisional anti-dumping duty have been collected in their entirety under the regulation imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty an importer who has had to pay those duties may place no reliance on any legal effect arising out of the provisional regulation, so that, in principle, he has no further interest in contesting the provisional regulation.

The fact that the provisional regulation in question finds that the importer has breached its price undertaking and terminates it is not of such a nature as to establish that importer' s interest in pursuing the annulment of that regulation.

The Commission' s role forms an integral part of the Council' s decision-making process. It follows from the provisions of the basic anti-dumping Regulation No 2423/88 that the Commission is responsible for carrying out investigations and for deciding, on the basis of those investigations, whether to terminate the proceedings or, on the other hand, to continue them by adopting provisional measures and by proposing that the Council adopt definitive measures. However, it is for the Council to take a final decision and it may refrain from taking any decision at all if it disagrees with the Commission or, on the other hand, it may adopt a decision on the basis of the latter' s proposal.

Consequently, the Commission' s rejection of a proposed undertaking is not a measure having binding legal effects of such a kind as to affect the interests of the importer in question, since the Commission may revoke its decision or the Council may decide not to introduce an anti-dumping duty; but rather, it constitutes an intermediate measure whose purpose is to prepare for the final decision, and not a measure which may be challenged.

Similarly, the fact that Article 10(6) of Regulation No 2423/88 confers, at least expressly, only on the Commission the power to decide whether an undertaking has been breached, is not of such a nature as to make a decision to terminate an undertaking a measure which may be challenged.

In any event, a decision to terminate an undertaking has, in principle, the same consequences for the traders concerned as a decision to refuse a proposed undertaking, that is to say, the imposition of a provisional anti-dumping duty. In both cases, the decision concerned is merely an intermediary measure whose purpose is to prepare for the Council' s definitive decision.