Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Common commercial policy - Protection against dumping - Anti-dumping proceeding - Final disclosure document to be addressed to the exporter under investigation - Where sent to the exporter's registered office - Constitutes valid notification - Where the exporter has requested notification at another address - Irrelevant - Whether obligatory to inform the exporter's legal representative - No such obligation

(Council Regulation No 384/96. Art. 20)

2 Common commercial policy - Protection against dumping - Injury - Volume of imports - Imports made within a single group of undertakings to be taken into account

(Council Regulation No 384/96, Art. 3)

3 Common commercial policy - Protection against dumping - Injury - Factors to be taken into consideration - Volume of imports dumped - Impact of imports to be assessed as a whole, not on the basis of each individual exporter - Whether in breach of the principles of equal treatment and proportionality - No such breach

(Council Regulation No 384/96, Art. 3)

Summary

1 The final disclosure document referred to in Article 20 of the basic anti-dumping regulation, Regulation No 384/96, is duly notified to the exporter of the product under investigation where the Commission addresses it to the exporter's registered office, even if the undertaking has expressly asked to be notified at another address. None of the provisions of Article 20 requires the Commission to ensure that the final disclosure document has been communicated to the legal representative of the exporter concerned.

2 The mere fact that an import is made within a single group of undertakings is not a reason to exclude it from the scope of Article 3 of the basic anti-dumping regulation, Regulation No 384/96.

3 There is no provision in the basic anti-dumping regulation, Regulation No 384/96 - nor indeed in the 1994 Anti-Dumping Code - which obliges the Community institutions to consider, in anti-dumping proceedings, whether and, if so, to what extent each exporter responsible for dumping individually contributes to the injury caused to the Community industry. That injury must be assessed as a whole and there is good reason to consider the effect of all such imports on the Community industry and to take appropriate action against all the exporters, even if the volume of each individual exporter's exports is relatively small.

Accordingly, such a trader cannot successfully rely on the principle of equal treatment because the anti-dumping system precludes a trader who has exported a limited quantity from being considered, for the purposes of determining injury, as being in a situation different to that of a trader who has exported substantial quantities. Nor may that trader rely on the principle of proportionality, since, in order to safeguard the Community industry, it may be necessary to take even limited exports into consideration when determining the existence of injury.