Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Common commercial policy - Protection against dumping - Injury - Profit margin to be used when calculating the target price - Limited to the profit margin that could reasonably be expected in the absence of dumping

(Council Regulation No 2423/88, Arts 4(1) and 13(3))

2 Common commercial policy - Protection against dumping - Injury - Discretion of the institutions - Judicial review - Factors which may be taken into account

(Council Regulation No 2423/88, Art. 4)

3 Common commercial policy - Protection against dumping - Injury - Profit margin to be used when calculating the target price - Review procedures

(Council Regulation No 2423/88, Art. 4)

Summary

1 In an anti-dumping proceeding, the profit margin to be used by the Council when calculating the target price that will remove the injury to the Community industry must be limited to the profit margin which the Community industry could reasonably count on under normal conditions of competition, in the absence of the dumped imports. It would not be consistent with Articles 4(1) and 13(3) of the basic anti-dumping regulation, Regulation No 2423/88, to allow the Community industry a profit margin that it could not have expected if there had been no dumping. The criterion of the profit margin necessary to ensure the survival of the industry in question is not therefore consistent with the basic Regulation.

2 When reviewing the lawfulness of an anti-dumping proceeding, the Court of First Instance must verify that the institutions based their decisions on correct material facts and that their assessment of those facts was not manifestly erroneous, given the situation at the time when the contested measure was adopted. A study concerning the level of profit margins, which has not been presented to the Commission during the administrative procedure, must not to be taken into account for the purposes of judicial review.

3 When, in an anti-dumping proceeding, it is necessary to determine the profit margin to be used in calculating the target price that will remove the injury to the Community industry, and the undertakings in the Community industry have different production costs, hence different profit levels, the Community institutions have no choice, when determining the target price, but to calculate the weighted average of the production costs of the Community producers as a whole and to add to it the average profit margin which they consider reasonable in view of all the relevant circumstances.