CELEX: C1996/180/84
Language: en
Date: 1996-06-22 00:00:00
Title: Action brought on 12 April 1996 by Miwon Co., Ltd against the Council of the European Communities (Case T-51/96)

22 . 6 . 96            EN                   Official Journal of the European Communities                                No C 180/33
— the contested regulation is not adequately reasoned in so            Second plea:
     far as the Council did not consider the applicant's
     argument based on the cooperating Thai producer's                 The Commission wrongly assumed that the criteria for
     request that the normal value for Thailand be                     remission of import duties under Article 13 of the remission
     established on the basis of the sales made by that                regulation were not fulfilled. In monitoring and supervising
     producer's related company on the Japanese market,                imports falling within the Hilton quota, the Commission
                                                                       committed serious errors, and it was solely as a result of
— infringement of the basic Regulation, by making a                    those errors that it was possible for imports to be effected, in
     comparison between the normal value and the export                the quantities now determined and over a period of two
     price which infringes Article 2.9.a(ii ) of that                  years, on the basis of the submission of falsified certificates
     Regulation.                                                       of authenticity. In the contested decision, the Commission
                                                                       misjudged the extend of its misconduct and the legal
                                                                       consequences arising therefrom.
                                                                       Third plea:
Action brought on 12 April 1996 by Primex Produkte
Import-Export GmbH & Co. KG, Gebr. Kruse GmbH and                      The Commission breached essential rules of procedure, by
Interporc Im- und Export GmbH against the Commission of                denying Germany's representative at the meeting of experts
                  the European Communities                             of the Member States, held on 4 December 1995 , any
                                                                       opportunity to submit oral comments .
                          ( Case T-50/96 )
                            ( 96/C 180/83 )                            Fourth plea:
               (Language of the case: German)                          The Commission breached the applicants' right to a fair
                                                                       hearing, since it did not grant them any direct hearing in
An action against the Commission of the European                       accordance with the law . The Commission was under an
Communities was brought before the Court of First                      obligation to do so, despite the fact that the procedural rules
Instance of the European Communities on 12 April 1996 by               laid down by the Regulation implementing the Community
Primex Produkte Import-Export GmbH & Co. KG, of                        Customs Code did not provide for direct participation by
Hamburg ( Federal Republic of Germany), Gebr. Kruse                    the applicants in the proceedings before the Commission .
GmbH, of Hamburg ( Federal Republic of Germany ), and
Interporc Im- und Export GmbH, of Hamburg ( Federal                    Fifth plea:
Republic of Germany ), represented by Georg M. Berrisch,
Rechtsanwalt, Brussels, with an address for service in                 Lastly, the contested decision infringes Article 190 of the EC
Luxembourg at the Chambers of Guy Harles of Messrs                     Treaty, since it is inadequately reasoned .
Arendt & Medernach, 8— 10 Rue Mathias Hardt.
The applicants claim that the Court should :
— annul the decision of the Commission of 26 January
     1996 in case REM 8/95 , 11 /95 and 12/95 ( COM Doc .              Action brought on 12 April 1996 by Miwon Co., Ltd
     C( 96 ) 180 final ), addressed to the Federal Republic of             against the Council of the European Communities
     Germany, in so far as it concerns the applicants,                                         ( Case T-51/96 )
— order the Commission to pay the costs.                                                         96/C 180/84 )
Pleas in law and man agruments:                                                       (Language of the case: English)
By the contested decision, the Commission decided that                 An action against the Council of the European Union was
import duties are not to be remitted in respect of                     brought before the Court of First Instance of the European
applications made by the applicants and submitted by                   Communities on 12 April 1 996 by Miwon Co . Ltd,
Germany pursuant to Article 13 of Council Regulation                   represented by Jean-François Bellis, of Van Bael & Bellis,
( EEC ) No 1430/79 of 2 July 1979 . Those applications                 with an address for service in Luxembourg at the Chambers
related to the import of high-grade beef, known as 'Hilton             of Loesch & Wolters, 11 rue Goethe, Luxembourg.
quality' beef, from Argentina, in respect of which falsified
certificates of authenticity, purporting to be issued by the
Argentine authorities, had been submitted to the customs               The applicant claims that the Court should:
authorities .
                                                                       — annul Council Regulation ( EC ) No 81/96 of 19 January
First plea:                                                                1996 imposing definitive anti-dumping duties on
                                                                           imports of monosodium glutamate originating, inter
The decision was founded on the wrong legal basis . The                    alia, in the Republic of Korea in so far as it imposes a
correct legal basis was Article 239 of the Community                       definitive anti-dumping duty on the applicant and orders
Customs Code and not Article 13 of the Regulation relating                 the collection of provisional anti-dumping duties with
to remission .                                                             respect to products exported by the applicant; and
 ---pagebreak--- No C 180/34                EN                 Official Journal of the European Communities                                    22 . 6 . 96
— order        the      Council     to   bear the   costs     of this        and the Tribunal de Defensa de la Competencia de
       proceeding.                                                           Espana ( Spanish Court for the Defence of Competition )
                                                                             respectively, and made public by way of a statement of
Pleas in law and main arguments:                                             the spokesperson for the Commissioner responsible for
                                                                             Competition Policy on 8 February 1996, in which
                                                                             the Commission concluded that the concentration
The applicant, a limited company established under the laws
of the Republic of Korea , produces a wide range of food and                 by which Cablevision SA was taken under joint
chemicals products, including monosodium glutamate                           control constitutes a concentration operation with a
 (' MSG'), a product used as a flavour enhancer in food                      Community dimension;
 products . On 3 November 1 995 , it lodged an application for
annulment against Commission Regulation ( EC )                           — order the defendant to pay the costs .
No 1754/95 imposing a provisional anti-dumping duty on
 imports of monosodium glutamate originating in Indonesia ,
the Republic of Korea , Taiwan and Thailand ( 1 ). The act               Pleas in law and main arguments:
challenged in the present application is Council Regulation
 ( EC ) No 8 1 /96 ( 2 ), imposing definitive anti-dumping duties        The applicant submits that, on 26 July 1995 , Telefonica de
on imports of monosodium glutamate originating in Korea,                 Espana, SA and its subsidiary Telecartera , SA, on the one
Indonesia and Taiwan .                                                   hand, and Sociedad de Gestion de Cable, SA and Sociedad
                                                                         de Television Canal Plus, SA ( two companies which, since
The grounds, on the basis of which the legality of the                  January 1 996 , constitute a single company known from
contested Regulation is challenged, can be summarized as                 March 1996 as Sogecable ) on the other, signed agreements
follows :                                                                which involved the transformation of Sociedad General de
                                                                         Cablevision, SA into a joint venture of a concentrated nature
 1 , the Council has wrongly determined the applicant's                  and intended to provide multimedia services, not including
       dumping margin, and hence the applicant's                         telecommunications, to local cable operators . Since those
       anti-dumping duty, in that it has determined the                  agreements implied the existence of an economic
       applicant's export price on the basis of Articles 2 ( 8 ) ( b )   concentration, the signatory undertakings considered
       and 7 ( 7 ) ( b ) of the anti-dumping Regulation whilst it        whether it had a Community dimension within the meaning
       should have exclusively applied Article 2 ( 8 ) ( a );            of Article 1 ( 2 ) of Regulation ( EEC ) No 4064/89 . After
                                                                         considering the relevant factors, those undertakings arrived
2 , the Council's finding that the imports from the countries            at the conclusion that the concentration had a national
       subject to investigation had, taken in isolation,                 dimension, so that it was excluded from the scope of the
       continued to cause material injury to the Community               regulation . The Commission, on the contrary, found that
       industry is vitiated by fundamental contradictions .              the establishment of Cablevision was a concentration with
                                                                         Community dimension .
f 1 ) Case T-208/95 , OJ No C 351 , 30 . 12 . 1995 , p . 19 .
( 2 ) OJ No L 15 , 20 . 1 . 1996 , p . 20 .                             That     decision   of     the   Commission    constitutes    the
                                                                         subject-matter of the present action based on the
                                                                        infringement of Article 5 ( 4 ) of Regulation ( EEC )
                                                                        No 4064/89 .
                                                                        According to the applicant, the argument of the
Action brought on 16 April 1996 by Sogecable SA against                 Commission is essentially the following: Sogecable is jointly
         the Commission of the European Communities                     controlled by two of its shareholders, Prisa ( Promotora de
                             ( Case T-52/96                             Informaciones, SA ) and Canal Plus Francia ( Canal Plus,
                                96/C 180/85                             Société Anonyme ); consequently, pursuant to Article 5 (4 )
                                                                        of Regulation ( EEC ) No 4064/89, Sogecable's turnover
                                                                        must be added to the turnover of Prisa and Canal Plus
                  (Language of the case: Spanish)                       Francia . The Community dimension results from that
                                                                        aggregate .
An action against the Commission of the European
Communities was brought before the Court of First                       The applicant claims that, vis-à-vis Sogecable, only Prisa is
Instance of the European Communities on 16 April 1 996 by               in any of the situations contemplated by Article 5 ( 4 ) of the
Sogecable SA, whose registered office is in Madrid,                     regulation, namely, that laid down in Article 5 ( 4 ) ( e ) ( has
represented by Santiago Martinez Lage and Rafael                        the right to manage the undertaking's affairs ), although that
Allendesalazar Corcho, of the Madrid Bar, with an address               is not the case so far as Canal Plus Francia is concerned . The
for service in Luxembourg at the Chambers of Aloyse May,                fact of the matter is that the Commission, by its decision,
31 Grand-Rue .
                                                                        seeks in essence to replace the clear, exhaustive and formal
                                                                        criteria of Article 5 ( 4 ) with the vaguer, more imprecise and
The applicant claims that the Court should :                            practical criteria of Article 3 ( 3 ) which is not intended to
                                                                        determine whether a concentration has a Community
— annul the decision of the Commission contained in the                 dimension but merely to define whether an operation
      letters of 6 and 7 February 1996 sent to the applicant            constitutes a concentration. Thus, the Commission infringes