Judgment of the Court Second Chamber of 28 April 2022, Yieh United Steel v Commission, C-79/20 P

• Date: 28 April 2022
• Year: 2022

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IX. COMMON COMMERCIAL POLICY: ANTI-DUMPING

Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 28 April 2022, Yieh United Steel v Commission,

C-79/20 P

Link to the complete text of the judgment

Appeal – Dumping – Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1429 – Imports of stainless steel cold-rolled flat

products originating in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan – Definitive anti-dumping duty –

Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 – Article 2 – Calculation of the normal value – Calculation of the production

cost – Production losses – Refusal to deduct the value of recycled scrap – Determination of the normal

value on the basis of sales of the like product intended for domestic consumption – Exclusion from the

basis of calculation used to determine the normal value of sales on the domestic market of the exporting

country where those sales concern products intended for export

Following a complaint lodged by Eurofer, Association européenne de l’acier, the European

Commission adopted, following an investigation, Implementing Regulation 2015/1429

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(‘the

contested regulation’) imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of stainless steel cold-rolled

flat products originating in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan (‘the product under

consideration’).

Yieh United Steel Corp. (‘the appellant’), a company established in Taiwan, active in particular in the

manufacture and distribution of the product under consideration, brought an action before the

General Court for annulment of the contested regulation in so far as it concerned the appellant. It

relies, inter alia, on an infringement of Article 2(2) of the basic regulation,

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under which the ‘normal

value’ of products subject to the anti-dumping duty is normally determined on the basis of sales of

the like product intended for domestic consumption. In that regard, the appellant challenged, inter

alia, the Commission’s refusal to take into consideration, for the purposes of determining the normal

value, certain sales of the product concerned to its independent buyer in the exporting country (‘the

sales in question’), on the sole ground that the product concerned had been exported by that

customer after those sales, whereas the Commission had not shown that the appellant intended not

to use that product for domestic consumption.

By judgment of 3 December 2019

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(‘the judgment under appeal’), the General Court dismissed the

action brought by the appellant, holding, inter alia, that the Commission could refuse to take into

account the sales in question for the purposes of determining the normal value, irrespective of

whether the exporting producer had, at the time those sales were concluded, any knowledge of the

export of the products concerned, if it had objective evidence that those sales were in fact export

sales.

By judgment on appeal, the Court of Justice upholds the judgment of the General Court, while

clarifying the expression ‘intended for consumption’ used in Article 2(2) of the basic regulation.

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Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1429 of 26 August 2015 imposing a definitive anti -dumping duty on imports of stainless

steel cold-rolled flat products originating in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan (OJ 2015 L 224, p. 10).

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Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 of 30 November 2009 on protection against dumped imports from co untries not members of the

European Community (OJ 2009 L 343, p. 51).

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Judgment of 3 December 2019, Yieh United Steel v Commission (T-607/15, EU:T:2019:831).