Brussels, 17/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - The EU General Court has dismissed the complaint filed by BP North America against antidumping regulations affecting American biodiesel.
In a ruling on 16 January, the General Court's fourth chamber rejected the complaint from BP North America against the Council of the EU (case T-385/11), challenging and calling for the annulment of Community Regulations 443/2011 and 444/2011 set in place to prevent circumvention of EU antidumping duties established against imports of US B99 biodiesel.
“This victory is extremely important since it confirms with a definitive judgment the legal stop to any kind of circumvention practice to import biodiesel in Europe via biodiesel blends lower than 20%, or via triangular trade. The anti-circumvention regulations were not at all annulled as requested by BP but on the contrary they were even reinforced by the Court's judgment”, states the European Biodiesel Board (EBB), which represents the interests of European producers. Furthermore, the ruling requires BP to pay the legal expenses of the EU Council and of EBB. In this perspective, an appeal of the decision by BP seems quite unlikely, EBB believes.
European biodiesel producers filed an antidumping complaint in 2009 against US biodiesel exports. In March 2009, the EU imposed high antidumping and countervailing duties on US biodiesel. Those measures, which have been in place for five years, are to expire in July 2014. Given the practice of circumventing these antidumping duties, either through triangular trade with third countries based on fraudulent declarations of origin, or in the form of blending (B19) containing less than 20% of biodiesel and specifically intended to circumvent the duties, the Council and EU had taken retroactive anti-circumvention measures in 2011 for imports from Canada and for imports of blended US biodiesel. (EH/transl.jl)