Giant has introduced an application before the General Court of the European Union aimed at the annulment of the Commission’s Regulations imposing anti-dumping and countervailing duties on electric bicycles from China.

The pleas against the duties is based on four arguments:

• The Commission concluded that the aluminium raw material purchased by Giant was subject to state interference and did not reflect market values. Giant claims that this is a manifest error of assessment.
• The Commission has made a manifest error in the method used to determine that Giant was subject to significant distortions.
• The Commission infringed the Basic Regulation by failing to carry out a fair comparison by not adjusting normal value for the differences in level of trade between export prices and normal value and by not providing Giant with the necessary information to quantify its adjustment claim.
• The Commission infringed the Basic Regulation by failing to compare prices at the same level of trade and at the point where the goods enter into competition with each other.

The Court now has to decide on the admissibility of the plea. Should the court allow the plea, other parties, who believe that they have grounds to call for the annulment of the Commission’s Regulation, could join the case as intervenors. A decision in favour of the plaintiff(s) would force the Commission to immediately stop the anti-dumping and countervailing measures. Furthermore, the annulment of the Regulation would mean that all duties have been collected unlawfully and would therefore have to be paid back by the Commission.

LEVA-EU is currently consulting with its members and its lawyers to determine a position in this case.

The plea against the anti-dumping Regulation is here, against the anti-subsidy Regulation here.