Action brought on 23 December 2004 by Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group Co., Ltd against the Council of the European Union

(Case T-498/04)

(2005/C 57/60)

Language of the case: English

An action against the Council of the European Union was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 23 December 2004 by Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group Co., Ltd, Jiande City (People's Republic of China), represented by D. Horovitz, lawyer with an address for service in Luxembourg.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant seeks the annulment of Council Regulation (EC) No 1683/2004 of 24 September 2004 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of glyphosate originating in the People's Republic of China (1), insofar as it concerns the applicant. The applicant submits that the Community institutions failed to apply properly the market economy treatment test to it.

In support of its application, the applicant invokes a manifest error of assessment in the application of Article 2(7)(c) of Regulation No 384/96 (2), as amended.

The applicant claims that the Council did not state in the contested regulation that there has been significant state interference in the applicant's business decisions. Also, the Council did not apply, according to the applicant, the right threshold to assess whether the criteria set in Article 2(7)(c) were fulfilled. The applicant contests that the alleged right of the state to intervene in the company's business decisions, without any materialisation or exercise of that alleged right, was a factor from which it could be inferred that the first criterion of Article 2(7)(c) was not fulfilled. The applicant submits furthermore that the evidence supplied clearly established that the applicant's decisions on prices, costs and inputs responded to market signals reflecting supply and demand, and that there was no state interference in this regard.

Second, the applicant invokes the failure to comply with paragraph 6 of annex II of the WTO's anti-dumping agreement and with Article 18(4) of Regulation No 384/96, as well as with the obligation to protect the applicant's legal rights. The applicant claims that its legal and procedural rights were infringed by not informing it of the reasons for the rejection of its evidence, by failing to grant it an opportunity to provide further information and by failing to publish the reasons for the rejection of the representations that the applicant made.

Finally, the applicant invokes a violation of its legitimate expectations in that the Community institutions failed to come to an expeditious conclusion on the claim for market economy status of the applicant.

(1)  OJ L 303, p. 1

(2)  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)