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European Business Law

Pursuant to Article 5 of Regulation No 2016/1036, the complaint, along with a non-confidential summary (Regulation No 2016/1036, Article 19), must not only include “evidence of dumping, injury and a causal link between the allegedly dumped imports and the alleged injury”, but also information on the complainant, the dumped product, prices at which it is sold, and the evolution of imports involved. …

Content of the complaint

Pursuant to Article 5 of Regulation No 2016/1036, the complaint, along with a non-confidential summary (Regulation No 2016/1036, Article 19), must not only include “evidence of dumping, injury and a causal link between the allegedly dumped imports and the alleged injury”, but also information on the complainant, the dumped product, prices at which it is sold, and the evolution of imports involved. According to the General Court, the Commission may initiate proceedings against a single producer where a complaint has been properly lodged with it containing evidence of dumping, injury and a causal link between the allegedly dumped imports and the alleged injury and it was established in an earlier investigation that the producer in question had a zero or de minimis dumping margin and anti-dumping measures are in force against all the other producers of the like product concerned .

The complainant must provide information as is reasonably available to him. In addition to his identity, he must describe the volume and value of the Union production of the like product, identify the industry on behalf of which the complaint is made by a list of all known producers of the like product, give a complete description of the dumped product, give the name of the country or countries of origin or export, that of exporters or producers, and a list of importers, state the selling price of the product concerned in the internal market, the export prices or the prices at which the product is first resold to an independent buyer in the Union and, lastly, indicate changes in the volume of dumped imports, the effects of those imports on prices of the like product on the internal market and on the Union industry (Art. 5(2)(a) to (d)). The complainant only has a best-effort undertaking: the fact than the names and addresses of known importers were omitted has no impact on the complaint where the Commission, being aware of the existence of these undertakings from the initiation of the proceedings, promptly sent requests for information to them . The complainant must not however adopt a discriminatory conduct and provide an analysis of the situation of all countries with significant imports of the product concerned with a view of concluding whether such imports are made at injurious volumes and prices and whether such countries' export prices are, prima facie, dumped .

The description of the dumped products contained in the complaint is not binding upon the Commission since the definition of the range of products concerned is not the prerogative of the complainant . In effect, although the product must be defined by the complainant, the Commission may decide, in view of the information collected in the course of the investigation, to extend  or limit  the range of products concerned. The complainant may also clarify the definition of the products after the investigation is initiated and this new description is published in the OJ, like the first one .

Although it is the Commission's practice to open investigations against all products imported from a given country, it may restrict its investigations to certain exporters where the complainants have expressly limited the complaint to those exporters .

In practice, dismissals of complaint by reason of insufficient content are rare due to the fact that it is usual practice to previously disclose the draft complaint to the Commission. 

Case T-156/11 Since Hardware (Guangzhou) Co, Judgment of 18 September 2012, LawLex201200002406JBJ.

Council Regulation (EU) No 1006/96 of 3 June 1996, imports of powdered activated carbon (China), LawLex200900002410JBJ.

Council Regulation (EU) No 1662/2002 of 18 September 2002, imports of certain filament yarns of cellulose acetate (United States of America, Lithuania), LawLex200900002770JBJ.

Council Regulation (EU) No 2263/2000 of 9 October 2000, imports of black colorformers (Japan), LawLex200900002583JBJ.

Council Regulation (EC) No 3262/90 of 5 November 1990, imports of audio tapes in cassettes originating in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Hong-Kong, LawLex200900002698JBJ.

Commission Regulation (EC) No 837/2000 of 19 April 2000, imports of certain cathode-ray color-television picture tubes (India, Malaysia, China, Korea), LawLex200900002879JBJ.

Commission Regulation (EC) No 2684/88 of 26 August 1988, imports of video cassette recorders (Japan, Korea), LawLex200900002675JBJ.

European Business Law

434. Content of the complaint

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Les notions juridiques connexes

434. Content of the complaint

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise