Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Actions for annulment - Actionable measures - Measures intended to produce legal effects - Commission proposal to close an anti-dumping proceeding - Intermediate preparatory measure - Excluded

(EC Treaty, Art. 173; Council Regulation No 2423/88, Art. 9)

2 Actions for failure to act - Failure remedied after commencement of proceedings - Action rendered devoid of purpose - No need to adjudicate

(EC Treaty, Art. 175)

Summary

3 In the case of acts or decisions drawn up in a procedure involving several stages, and particularly at the end of an internal procedure, it is only those measures which definitively determine the position of the institution upon the conclusion of that procedure which are open to challenge and not intermediate measures whose purpose is to prepare for the final decision.

A proposal to terminate an anti-dumping proceeding made by the Commission to the Advisory Committee and the Council must be considered to be an intermediate measure, which is intended to prepare the final decision and cannot be regarded as an act against which an action will lie.

Thus it is apparent from Article 9 of the basic anti-dumping Regulation No 2423/88 that, as regards the termination of an anti-dumping proceeding without the imposition of protective measures, the Community legislature intended to establish a decision-making mechanism based on a power shared between the Commission, on the one hand, and the Advisory Committee and the Council, on the other. Under that mechanism, when the Commission's proposal to terminate the proceeding is rejected, the proceeding cannot be terminated and the case is referred back to the Commission for re-examination in the light of the position adopted by the Council.

4 When, in the context of an action for failure to act, the measure to which the proceedings relate is adopted after the action was brought, but before judgment has been given, the action no longer has any purpose, with the result that there is no longer any need to adjudicate.