EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 14/39

(Case T-753/16)

(2017/C 014/48)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: PAO Severstal (Cherepovets, Russia) (represented by: B. Evtimov, lawyer and D. O’Keeffe, Solicitor)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—annul Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1328 of 29 July 2016 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty and collecting definitively the provisional duty imposed on imports of certain cold rolled flat steel products originating, inter alia, in the Russian Federation, published in the OJ L 210 of 04/08/2016 in its entirety insofar as it affects the Applicant;

—order the Commission to pay the costs of and occasioned by these proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on six pleas in law.

1.First plea in law, alleging that the Commission breached Article 18 of the Basic Regulation (1), Article 6.8 and Annex II of the ADA (2), when it considered the Applicant a partially non-cooperating producer and applied facts available to it, and made a manifest error of assessment. According to the Applicant, in addition, the consequences from partial non-cooperation were manifestly inappropriate in light of the limited deficiencies found.

2.Second plea in law, alleging that the Commission breached the right to a fair hearing and the rights of defence of the Applicant by limiting the opportunities for the Applicant to defend itself against the Commission’s adverse findings. According to the Applicant, the Commission effectively rejected/disregarded any additional information or argument from the Applicant concerning its partial non-cooperation status.

3.Third plea in law, alleging that the Commission failed to establish a correct dumping margin in accordance with Article 2(12) of the Basic Regulation after it breached Article 2(3), Article 2(4), misinterpreted Article 2(9), and made manifest errors of assessment and alleging that the Commission failed to make a fair comparison in accordance with Article 2(10) of the Basic Regulation.

4.Fourth plea in law, alleging that the Commission breached Article 3(2) and 3(5) of the Basic Regulation and Article 3.1 of the ADA, distorted the evidence before it and made manifest errors of assessment, by wrongly assessing the injury indicators and not carrying out an objective examination of the state of the Union industry. According to the Applicant, the Commission relied only on selected economic indicators of the state of the Union industry and neglected key indicators which would have revealed a different, more positive state of the Union industry. The Applicant further puts forward that the Commission took a biased approach favoring its injury findings and distorting evidence before it by failing to examine the ‘free’ and ‘captive’ markets of the product concerned as a whole and together for all indicators, and choosing to make a separate ‘three-way assessment’ which distorted the overall assessment.

5.Fifth plea in law, alleging that the Commission breached Article 3(7) of the Basic Regulation, as it wrongly assessed the causal link between allegedly dumped imports and the situation of the Union industry. The Applicant further puts forward that the Commission failed in its duty not to attribute other factors causing injury to the allegedly dumped imports and overlooked other factors which jointly and severally were capable of breaking the causal link.

6.Sixth plea in law, alleging that the Commission wrongly determined the injury elimination level, breaching Articles 2(9), 9(4) of the Basic Regulation and making a manifest error of assessment. In particular, according to the Applicant, the Commission determined an unreasonable and excessive profit margin for the Union industry and committed a manifest error of assessment in applying, for injury margin purposes, and by analogy, the adjustment for reasonable selling, general and administrative costs and a profit of an unrelated importer, foreseen in Article 2(9) of the Basic Regulation.

Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 of 30 November 2009 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Community (OJ L 343, p. 51).

WTO Anti-dumping Agreement.