Dear Valued Customer, 

As you may be aware of, in the last month and a half, the European Commission first adopted the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1215 to register imports of aluminium extrusions originating in the People’s Republic of China (21th of August), then issued the Pre-disclosure on provisional anti-dumping rate (22^nd of September) and now, UE Commission confirmed the introduction of provisional duties starting from 14^th October 2020.

In none of those two cases, as we fully expected, the European Commission took into account the plain facts we submitted to their attention – as taken by our writ or by the ones of European Importers not associated with the European Association – but rather preferred to passively rely on the picture outlined by the plaintiff, the European Aluminium Association. 

The reason of such orientation lies in the nature of the procedure itself that is, until the issue of the provisional duties, strongly inquisitorial with rare and inadequate opportunities of cross-examination in favour of the resistant parties. 

We understand it might be difficult for anyone with no specific legal background to comprehend such bias, but the rules of the procedure are, until the decision of the provisional duties, strongly unbalanced in favour of the plaintiff.

From now on, other Departments of the European Commission, such as the Legal Department, shall be brought into play in the procedure, so that we will have the possibility of interacting with a broader spectrum of interlocutors. This, together with the involvement of other European Authorities – namely the European Court of Justice - will eventually grant our data and numbers to be assessed in a clearer and more independent way. In the RCC phase we provided various elements to demonstrate that Haomei and KM operate in a market environment (knowing that there is an inverse presumption explicitly contained in the Regulation and our task is to reverse the presumption).

At this purpose, beyond replying to the Implementing Regulation and the Pre-disclosure before the European Commission, in the last twenty days we drafted and submitted:

• A summon before the Tribunal of the European Court of Justice, to complain about the decision of the EC to begin the registration of Haomei’s imports. In fact, such decision relies on the fact that, according to the EC, a significant rise in imports has occurred during the investigation period, while we submitted to the Commission, again and again, numbers, data and invoices that clearly prove the contrary.

• A summon before the Tribunal of the European Court of Justice, to complain about the methodology that the European Commission has been using in the present procedure to calculate the dumping margin. In fact, the EC, without any justification, decided to arbitrarily adopt the so called “fair value” method in order to reconstruct and redetermine expenses and revenues of Haomei, based on Turkish parameters dating from 2016! In case that were not sufficient to highlight the misrepresentation of the EC, kindly note that a provisional 30.4% margin of dumping is being disposed against our Companies, even though the very same independent importers have repeatedly provided the Commission with invoices that clearly prove how Haomei’s prices are fully aligned to the ones of some  European Producers’ similar products.

We are restlessly working to effectively support our arguments before the European Commission, as we are acting before the relevant jurisdictions to defend Haomei’s rights and interests. We shall constantly keep you updated about the actions we will undertake before the EC and before the European Court of Justice. We are more determined than ever to prevail: we knew from the beginning the path wouldn’t have been short, but we are well aware that our subjects are extremely solid and that the procedure is far yet to be closed. We are confident that, at the end of the procedure, the provisional duties will be entirely withdrawn or replaced with ones considerably reduced.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us anytime.

Today, 13^th October 2020

Haomei Legal Team