Antidumping duty on imports of glyphosate from China

Date:07-02-2009

On the release of COUNCIL REGULATION 1683/2004 of 24 September 2004, after a decade of constructive but vain opposition to the antidumping measure affecting imports of glyphosate originating in the PRC, AUDACE took the decision to motivate the Chinese industry to come and contest the way the regulation had been adopted before the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.

Only the company Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group Co., Ltd (WYNCA) responded and took up the challenge. It was to last almost 5 years, the duration of the contested regulation.

On June, 1st 2005 the Council requested from the Court that AUDACE’s application to intervene be rejected. AUDACE successfully made the demonstration of its members' interests, its consistent involvement and constructive opposition to the contested Regulation. AUDACE further submitted that the contested Regulation reinforced a monopoly situation in the Community market detrimental to farmers and independent generic producers. The association further explained the complaint it lodged in 2002 alleging entente and abuse of dominant position with respect to Monsanto’s ROUNDUP brand and generic glyphosate based herbicides.

By order of the President of the First Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities AUDACE was granted leave to intervene on the 8th July 2005.

Court of First Instance annuls definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of glyphosate from China

The ruling of June 17th, 2009 is very explicit of the importance of AUDACE’s intervention because it includes major arguments extracted from AUDACE’s own conclusions what is very rare from interveners coming to the support of an applicant, in this case Xinan Chem.

Of course, only the latter will benefit from the CFI’s decision, the contested Regulation, which, although suspended on May 14th of this year thanks to AUDACE, remains legally effective against other Chinese producers.