Judgment;Abstract — ECLI:EU:T:2019:619
Date: 2019-09-19
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Fourth Chamber
Subject matter: Dumping;External relations;Commercial policy
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded

summary of the pleas in law on which it is based. It is clear from case-law that that summary must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare its defence and the court having jurisdiction to rule on the action (see, to that effect, judgment of 5 March 1991, Grifoni v EAEC, C‑330/88, EU:C:1991:95, paragraph 18). 167 In the present case, it should be noted that, as the Commission has argued, the applicant has not developed or explained what constitutes the breach of the principles of sound administration and transparency on which it relied in the heading of the fourth plea, with the result that that line of argument must be rejected as inadmissible. (b) Infringement of the applicant’s rights of defence 168 As regards the infringement of the rights of defence relied on by the applicant, it must first be noted that, as concluded in paragraph 36 above, the applicant cannot rely on the CCCMC’s rights of defence before the Court. 169 Next, the complaint that the time limit granted for submitting comments on the revised final disclosure was insufficient must be rejected, for the reasons set out in paragraphs 37 to 41 above. 170 Furthermore, as regards, the complaint that data on the Union industry available at the time of the provisional disclosure were not disclosed, it must be noted, first, that the applicant has not established that it requested the disclosure of those data itself in its comments on the provisional disclosure, the reference to the CCCMC’s comments being irrelevant for the reasons recalled in paragraph 169 above. Secondly, the applicant failed to establish that the outcome of the procedure might have been different had it been aware of those data as from the time of the provisional disclosure rather than the time of the final disclosure. For the foregoing reasons, the present complaint must be rejected. 171 As regards, lastly, the complaint that the time limit granted for submitting comments on the final disclosure was insufficient, it is sufficient to note that the time limit of 22 days granted by the Commission is well above the minimum time limit of 10 days prescribed, in that context, by Article 20(5) of Regulation 2016/1036, and the specific circumstances claimed by the applicant cannot call into question the proper conduct of the procedure in that regard. Accordingly, the present complaint must be rejected. 172 In the light of the foregoing, the fourth plea must be rejected in its entirety. 173 It follows from the foregoing that the action must be dismissed. IV. Costs 174 Under Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. 175 Under Article 138(1) of the Rules of Procedure, Member States and institutions which have intervened in the proceedings are to bear their own costs. 176 In the present case, the Commission applied for the applicant to be ordered to pay the costs. Since the applicant has been unsuccessful, the form of order sought by the Commission must be granted and the applicant ordered to pay the costs. In addition, as an intervening institution, the Council must bear its own costs. On those grounds, THE GENERAL COURT (Fourth Chamber) hereby: 1. Dismisses the action; 2. Orders Zhejiang Jndia Pipeline Industry Co. Ltd to pay, in addition to its own costs, those incurred by the European Commission; 3. Orders the Council of the European Union to bear its own costs. Kanninen Calvo-Sotelo Ibáñez-Martín Reine Delivered in open court in Luxembourg on 19 September 2019. E. Coulon A. M. Collins Registrar President Table of contents I. Background to the dispute II. Procedure and forms of order sought III. Law A. Substance 1. First plea, alleging a manifest error of assessment, failure to assess evidence impartially, imposition of an excessive burden of proof on the applicant, infringement of the applicant’s right to be heard and failure to provide an adequate statement of reasons in determining that tube and pipe fittings produced in accordance with the ASME/ANSI and EN/DIN standards are interchangeable (a) Subject matter of the first plea (b) Second complaint, alleging infringement of the applicant’s right to be heard in determining that the two types of standards are interchangeable (c) First, third and fourth complaints, alleging manifest error, failure to examine evidence impartially and imposition of an excessive burden of proof on the applicant in determining that tube and pipe fittings produced in accordance with the ASME/ANSI and EN/DIN standards are interchangeable (1) Admissibility of certain annexes to the reply (2) Admissibility of the applicant’s arguments concerning recital 54 of the contested regulation (3) Substance of the first, third and fourth complaints (d) Fifth complaint, alleging failure to provide an adequate statement of reasons in determining that tube and pipe fittings produced in accordance with the ASME/ANSI and EN/DIN standards are interchangeable 2. Fifth plea, alleging a manifest error of assessment in applying non-market economy treatment (a) Possibility of relying before the Court on point 15 of Part I of the Protocol on the Accession of China to the WTO for the purposes of reviewing the legality of the contested regulation (b) Interpretation of Article 2(7)(a) of Regulation No 1225/2009 in compliance with WTO law 3. Second plea, alleging a manifest error of assessment and failure to provide an adequate statement of reasons in relation to the adjustment of the normal value (a) Admissibility of some of the applicant’s arguments (b) Substance (1) Manifest error of assessment in relation to the adjustment of the normal value (2) Failure to provide an adequate statement of reasons in relation to the adjustment of the normal value 4. Third plea, alleging a manifest error of assessment and abuse of discretion in determining the period considered (a) Admissibility of the plea (b) Substance 5. Fourth plea, alleging breach of the principles of sound administration and transparency and infringement of the rights of defence (a) Breach of the principles of sound administration and transparency relied on by the applicant (b) Infringement of the applicant’s rights of defence IV. Costs * Language of the case: English.