European General Court annuls duties on Chinese truck and bus tyres

The European General Court recently ruled that the European Commission’s anti-dumping and countervailing duties imposed in 2018 on imports of truck and bus tyres from China must be annulled.

The court found that the European Commission “failed to carry out fair price comparison in its calculation of price undercutting”.

What next?
The European Commission now has until 14th July to appeal this decision, and according to Yorick Lowin, managing director of German tire retail association (BRV), there are three main options the European tyre industry can take. As of today, the European Commission has not responded or indicated what they will do.

Option A is is for the European Commission to lodge an appeal against the judgement at the European Court of Justice. This would mean that the annulment ruling would be set aside until the appeal is settled, and all duties would continue to apply until then.

Option B is for the European Commission to accept the judgement and initiate a compliance investigation to correct any errors with its original imposition of tariffs and duties in 2018. The trade measures would then be re-imposed, most likely at a reduced level.

And finally option C, the European Commission could accept the judgement and not re-impose the measures if they believe that the errors identified by the court could not be rectified.

Lowin said that while the European Commission has yet to make a decision, option B is “the most likely of the three outcomes”.

In the next issue of the Tyre Trade Journal going to press next week, we will outline the EU Commission’s option following this court ruling.