Case T-682/25: Action brought on 3 October 2025 – Heilongjiang Eppen Biotech v Commission
Date: 2025-10-03
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: China, amino acid, animal feedingstuffs, anti-dumping duty, food additive, import (EU), originating product, rights of the defence








C_202506309EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/6309


1.12.2025






Action brought on 3 October 2025 – Heilongjiang Eppen Biotech v Commission


(Case T-682/25)

(C/2025/6309)
Language of the case: English

Parties


Applicant: Heilongjiang Eppen Biotech Co. Ltd (Daqing, China) (represented by: B. Evtimov, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






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annul Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1330 of 10 July 2025 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty and definitively collecting the provisional duty imposed on imports of lysine originating in the People’s Republic of China (OJ L 2025/1330), insofar as the applicant is concerned; and,










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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 three pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging that the Commission breached the rights of defence of the applicant and the principle of good administration enshrined in Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, each of which is alleged to constitute a breach of an essential procedural requirement. As a consequence, Article 2(6a) of the Basic anti-dumping Regulation (1) is also alleged to be breached.










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The first plea concerns the Commission’s legally flawed establishment of the costs and market benchmarks for steam as one of the essential factors of production of lysine, the product concerned by the contested anti-dumping measure. The findings of the Commission on the benchmark for steam are vitiated by the alleged breaches of the rights of defense and of the principle of good administration.
Those alleged breaches led to establishing an inflated cost of manufacturing of the applicant, which in turn was used to exaggerate the constructed normal value, dumping margin and the anti-dumping duty for the applicant.
As a consequence of those alleged illegalities, Article 2(6a) of the Basic anti-dumping Regulation was also breached, since the Commission failed to establish a constructed normal value exclusively on the basis of costs of production and sale reflecting undistorted prices or benchmarks, using sources, which ensure undistorted international prices, costs or benchmarks, or domestic costs in China, to the extent that they are positively established and undistorted, on the basis of accurate and appropriate evidence.










2.


Second plea in law, alleging a breach of the rule for fair comparison in Article 2(10) of the Basic anti-dumping Regulation affecting the determination of export price, and alleging manifest errors of assessment in the Commission’s rejection of the applicant’s claim for the existence of a single economic entity involving the applicant and its related company in South-East Asia.










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In the second plea, the applicant alleges that that the Commission failed to make a fair comparison between normal value and export price as required by Article 2(10) of the Basic anti-dumping Regulation, with an unwarranted downward adjustment for costs and profit from the applicant’s export price, which the Commission allegedly wrongly based on Article 2(10)(i) of the Basic anti-dumping Regulation.
The applicant also alleges manifest errors of assessment in the Commission’s rejection of the existence of a single economic entity between the applicant and its related company in South-East Asia, addressing the elements, which the Commission invoked for the rejection in the contested regulation.










3.


Third plea in law, alleging a breach of the principle of good administration by the Commission, which has allegedly imposed an unreasonable burden of proof on the applicant. The applicant also alleges a breach of the rule for a fair comparison in Article 2(10) of the Basic anti-dumping Regulation, since the Commission allegedly failed to include reasonable selling, general and administrative expenses into the applicant’s constructed normal value.










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In the third plea, the applicant alleges that the Commission has imposed an unreasonable burden on it, by requiring the applicant to provide more detailed information on a third country source of data than the Commission itself has in its possession.
The applicant relies on recent case law, which the Commission has itself challenged. The applicant invokes the principle of good administration, and the principle for fair comparison enshrined in Article 2(10) of the Basic anti-dumping Regulation.






(1)  Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Union (OJ 2016 L 176, p. 21).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/6309/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)