Action brought on 2 July 2013 – Crown Equipment (Suzhou) and Crown Gabelstapler v Council
(Case T-351/13)
Language of the case: English
Parties
Applicants: Crown Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd (Suzhou, China) and Crown Gabelstapler GmbH & Co. KG (Roding, Germany) (represented by: K. Neuhaus, H.-J. Freund and B. Ecker, lawyers)
Defendant: Council of the European Union
Form of order sought
The applicants claim that the Court should:
Declare the application admissible ;
Annul Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 372/20131 of 22 April 2013 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1008/2011 of 10 October 2011 as far as it concerns the applicants; and
Order the defendant to bear its own costs as well as those of the applicants.
Pleas in law and main arguments
In support of the action, the applicants rely on three pleas in law.
First plea in law, alleging infringement of Art. 2 (7) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/20092 or Art. 296 (2) TFEU in so far as the Council made manifest errors of assessment or infringed its obligation to state reasons when it selected Brazil as an analogue country for the purposes of determining the normal value. The Council wrongly found that or failed to reason why there is sufficient competition on the Brazilian market, in particular with regard to the degree of competition between domestic producers and with regard to the degree of competition exerted by imports.
Second plea in law, alleging infringement of Art. 2 (7) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 or Art. 296 (2) TFEU in so far as the Council made a manifest error of assessment or infringed its obligation to state reasons when rejecting a claim for an adjustment to the normal value to account for the effect of a 14 % import duty on the product concerned in the analogue country Brazil.
Third plea in law, alleging an infringement of Art. 9 (4) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 in so far as the Council made a manifest error of assessment by, when applying the "lesser duty rule", comparing the dumping margin established in the contested regulation with the injury elimination level established in the original investigation in 2005 instead of establishing a new injury elimination level.
____________1 Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 372/2013 of 22 April 2013 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1008/2011 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of hand pallet trucks and their essential parts originating in the People’s Republic of China following a partial interim review pursuant to Article 11(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 (OJ 2013 L 112, p. 1)
2 Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 of 30 November 2009 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Community (OJ 2009 L 343, p. 51)