In contrast to many of its trading partners, and notably the United States, the European Union applies a prospective refund approach, not a retroactive one, to the adjustment of anti-dumping duty margins after such measures have been definitively imposed. Practically and empirically, this approach is fraught with difficulties. The result is that an abnormally low volume of refund requests is successfully pursued and that EU importers pay anti-dumping duties that do not accurately reflect the underlying commercial trading activities. Certain interpretative approaches taken by the European Commission to adapt to the prospective character of the processes are also open to question. This is especially so in the case of the so-called duty as a cost question, which invariably arises in the course of a refund claimed by related importers and their non-EU exporting manufacturers. The purpose of this article is to examine the many causes of the obstacles to the successful pursuit of refunds by EU importers and to flag up these difficulties for importers proposing to embark on this kind of exercise.
Global Trade and Customs Journal