China was successful on Monday 3 April in having a dispute settlement body (DSB) special panel established to decide on its complaint against the current method used by the EU to calculate anti-dumping duties.
The day after the expiry, on 11 December 2016, of certain provisions of China’s accession protocol to the WTO, which allowed the other member countries of the organisation to treat China as a non-market economy in their anti-dumping calculation methods, China brought a complaint to the WTO about the so-called substitute country method, used by the EU to calculate anti-dumping duties to be applied to Chinese exports (see EUROPE 11687).
After the failure at the end of January of its consultations with the EU, China submitted a request to the WTO for a DSB panel to be set up to hear its complaint against the EU (DS 516). Its first request was rejected by the EU at the meeting of the DSB on 21 March but, under WTO rules, its second request for a panel had to be automatically to be accepted.
Initially, China complained about the way the US calculates anti-dumping duties but, for the moment, it has only asked for a panel to be put in place to hear its complaint against the EU.
In November 2016, the European Commission proposed a new way of calculating anti-dumping duties to resolve the issue of how to deal with China in EU anti-dumping investigations after the expiry of the provisions in China’s WTO accession protocol (see EUROPE 11664). This proposal now has to be discussed and evaluated by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)