Action brought on 21 December 2006 - Sun Sang Kong Yuen Shoes Factory v Council

(Case T-409/06)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Sun Sang Kong Yuen Shoes Factory (Hui Yang) Co., Ltd (Xin Xu, China) (represented by: I. MacVay, solicitor, R. Thompson, QC, and K. Beal, barrister)

Defendant: Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

The contested regulation be annulled in so far as it applies to the applicant;

the defendant meet the applicant's costs of these proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant, who is a Chinese producer and exporter of leather footwear, seeks the annulment of Council Regulation (EC) No 1472/2006 of 5 October 2006 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty and collecting definitely the provisional duty imposed on imports of certain footwear with uppers of leather originating in the People's Republic of China and Vietnam¹.

In support of its application, the applicant invokes six pleas in law claming that:

the contested regulation is vitiated by a manifest error of assessment or infringes essential procedural requirements and the principle of equal treatment in failing to conclude that the applicant operated under market economy conditions²;

by refusing the applicant market economy treatment, the Commission breached Article 3 of the Basic Regulation and made a manifest error of assessment in failing to take account of relevant information concerning the structure of the market and in particular the important role played by independent intermediaries in the supply of products manufactured by the applicant;

the Commission acted outside the scope of Article 18(1) of the Basic Regulation and breached the applicant's rights of defence;

the Commission infringed Article 20 of the Basic Regulation in failing to give proper disclosure to the applicant in respect of the radical change of the definitive measures proposed by the Commission between 7 July and 28 July 2006;

the contested regulation is vitiated by a manifest error of assessment in respect of the extent and duration of the injury relied on to justify the imposition of duties on the applicant; and

the contested regulation infringes Article 2(10) of the Basic Regulation in respect of the need to make a 'fair comparison' between the export price and the normal value when assessing the dumping margin.

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¹ - OJ 2006 L 275, p. 1.

² - See Article 2(7)(b) and (c) of Council Regulation (EC) No 384/96 of 22 December 1995 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Community (OJ 1996 L 56, p. 1).