Action brought on 15 December 2011 - Crown Equipment (Suzhou) and Crown Gabelstapler v Council

(Case T-643/11)

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. Freund and B. Ecker, lawyers)

Defendant: Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

Declare the application admissible ;

Annul Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1008/2011², as far as it concerns the applicants ;

Order the defendant to bear its own costs and 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 a violation of the applicants' rights of defence in so far as the defendant explicitly ignored parts of the applicants' submissions.

Second plea in law, alleging an infringement of Articles 11(2), 3(2), (6) and (7) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 in so far as the defendant based its injury and causation findings on several errors in fact. The defendant based its findings on facts contrary to those set out in the contested regulation:

Firstly, with regard to the relative development of the injury indicators production and sales volume against Union consumption ;

Secondly, with regard to the development of the Union industry's profitability; and

Thirdly, with regard to the development of the Union industry's sales prices.

Third plea in law, alleging an infringement of Articles 11(2), 3(2), (6) and (7) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 or of Article 296(2) TFEU in so far as the defendant based its injury and causation findings on manifest errors of assessment or failed to provide sufficient reasons. The defendant committed manifest errors of assessment:

Firstly, when assessing injury indicators in the abstract instead of in relation to the development of demand; and

Secondly, when implicitly relying on the market shares as the essential indicator of a causal link despite the fact that market shares show no clear trend and developed contrary to the other injury factors the Council referred to as important.

In any event, the defendant committed a procedural error as the contested regulation does not contain explanations on the obvious impact of the contraction in demand on the injury allegedly suffered by the Union industry.

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¹ - Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1008/2011 of 10 October 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 as extended to imports of hand pallet trucks and their essential parts consigned from Thailand, whether declared as originating in Thailand or not, following an expiry review pursuant to Article 11(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1225/2009 (OJ 2011 L 268, 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)