Page 8 - Retrading Business N102 2022-03
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- ling) duties in November 2018.
These duties were imposed for a period of 5 years, respectively until October and November 2023 by Regulations adopted by the Com- mission.
The potential impact of the Court’s latest ruling on the European re- treading sector does not need explaining. However, the losing parties were given until July 14, 2022, to appeal the Court’s decision. At this point, the options open to the European Commission and Marangoni were threefold:
1) Lodge an appeal against the decision in the European Court of Jus- tice
2) Accept the judgement and conduct an administrative procedure to correct the errors and re-impose measures, probably at a lower level
3) Accept the judgement, not re-imposing measures
The advantage of Option 1 was that the judgement would have been decision was reached. However, this would have been a lengthy and - nal process, the feeling from those with experience of such matters is that, ultimately, an appeal would most likely have been unsuccessful.
The implications of Option 3 do not bear thinking about, but for the record, they would have meant that the tariffs would have been removed with effect from July 15 and all duties collected
hitherto would have been subject to reimbursement.
The overall effect would most likely have been a further increase in imports of cheap new tyres from China, a further weakening of the Circular Economy in the European tyre industry.
During May and June, BIPAVER were encouraging members and member associations to write to the EC, DG Trade and their respec- tive national authorities to encourage DG Trade to appeal against the ruling before the July 14 deadline, pointing out the consequen- ces of an annulation of the duties would bring to the retreading sec- tor.
EC, as expected, had chosen the second option and decided to re- open the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations in complian- ce with the High Court decisions. During the investigation period, all duties for the Chinese manufacturers represented in the claim will be suspended until the investigations are complete and a new level
However, in order to be able to collect the new duties retroactively the customs authorities will register all imports from now on. Mo- reover, in line with its current practice, the Commission has instruc- ted the national custom authorities to abstain from reimbursing duties already collected and to wait for the conclusions of the in- vestigation. This registration is limited for a period of 9 month at the moment, meaning that a result of the investigations can be expected before this period expires early next year.
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