Judgment of the General Court Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition of 19 May 2021, China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products and Others v Commission, T-254/18

• Date: 19 May 2021

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advisory committee or the documents in the file, particularly the full content of the emails and text

messages, even though those different items of information were taken into consideration in order to

conclude that harassment had occurred and to impose a penalty on the applicant. Consequently, the

Court considers that the general principle of respect for the rights of the defence of the applicant was

breached in the present case.

Focusing on the consequences of the breach of that principle, the Court recalls that a breach of the

rights of the defence results in the annulment of the decision taken at the end of a procedure only if,

had it not been for such an irregularity, the outcome of the procedure might have been different.

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That requirement is satisfied where, having not had access to the documents which should have been

disclosed in accordance with respect for the rights of the defence, the applicant was not able

effectively to submit his or her observations and was thus deprived of even a slight chance of being

better able to defend him or herself. In such a case, failure to disclose documents in the file which the

authorities have relied on inevitably affects, in the light of the protection to be afforded to the rights

of the defence, the lawfulness of the measures adopted at the end of a procedure liable to affect the

applicant adversely. In the present case, the Court considers that, since the applicant did not have

access to the full content of the file, she was deprived of the chance of being better able to defend

herself and that that irregularity inevitably affected the content of the decisions taken on the

existence of harassment and on the penalty.

Consequently, the Court considers that the three decisions in question must be annulled for breach

of the general principle of respect for the rights of the defence.

2. COMMON COMMERCIAL POLICY

Judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition) of 19 May 2021 ,

China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products

and Others v Commission, T-254/18

Link to the complete text of the judgment

Dumping – Imports of certain cast iron articles originating in China – Definitive anti-dumping duty – Action

for annulment – Admissibility – Association – Standing to bring proceedings – Interest in bringing

proceedings – Injury determination – Calculati on of the import volume – Macroeconomic and

microeconomic indicators – Sampling – Calculation of the EU industry’s cost o f production – Prices

charged intra-group – Causal link – Attribution and non-attribution analysis – No ass essment of injury by

segment – Assessment of the significance of undercutting – Confidential treatment of information – Rights

of the defence – PCN-by-PCN methodology – Product comparability – Calculation of the normal value –

Analogue country – Adjustment for VAT – Determination of the selling, general and administrative costs

and profit

Following a complaint lodged with the European Commission by certain European Union producers,

the Commission adopted, following an investigation opened on 10 December 2016, Implementing

Regulation 2017/1480,

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imposing a provisional anti-dumping duty on imports of certain cast iron

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Judgments of 4 April 2019, OZ v EIB, C-558/17 P, EU:C:2019:289, paragraphs 76 to 78), and of 25 June 2020, HF v Parliament (C-570/18 P ,

EU:C:2020:490, paragraph 73).

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Commission Impleme nting Regulation (EU) 2017/1480 of 16 August 2017 imposing a provisional anti-dumping duty on i mports of certain

cast iron articles originating in the People’s Republic of China, (OJ 2017 L 211, p. 14).