Luxembourg, 08/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The EU's Court of First Instance has rejected as inadmissible the action initiated by several independent shoe importers and retailers against the Council. In 1997, the latter had established a definitive anti-dumping duty of 94.1% and 36.5% on shoes with textile uppers from China and Indonesia respectively. These importers, brought together in an ad hoc group called "European Shoe Retail Organisation", had called for these duties to be cancelled. They complain that such duties could cause them considerable injury, and that some of them have had to lay off staff and sell a more restricted range of footwear (mainly shoes with a vulcanised sole which are apparently "practically not" manufactured in the EU).
Importers concerned were: British Shoe Corporation Footwear Supplies from Leicester (UK), Clarks International (Somerset, UK), Deichmann-Schuhe (Essen, Germany), Group André (Paris, France), Reno Versandhandel (Thaleishweiler-Froschen, Germany), and Leder & Schuh (Graz, Austria). They were supported by the Foreign Trade Association. The European Confederation of the Footwear Industry (CEC), in favour of introducing these duties, was present alongside the Council.
Importers immediately came up against the question of inadmissibility for their action. They are not individually concerned by the Council decision. The anti-dumping duties concern all independent importers and not just those meeting within the European Shoe Retail Organisation, explains the Fourth Chamber (enlarged to five judges), presided by Italian Judge Paolo Mengozzi.
The Court of First Instance specifies that, unlike exporter-producers, associate importers and the Community industry, independent imports are not, in principle, individually concerned by a Council "antidumping" regulation, unless it is to prove that there are elements that differentiate them from other importers. In addition, it notes, these importers only account for 9.5% of all shoe imports; they have not provided any figures allowing the magnitude of injury caused to them to be assessed; and it was not exact that they could not be supplied with shoes with vulcanised soles in the EU since, according to the Council, several Spanish producers had made them offers.
The Court of First Instance recalls that the Court had, in an Extramet affair, admitted that an importer could initiate court proceedings but only "in exceptional circumstances".