How the European Commission Implements WTO Rulings and European Courts’ Judgments Annulling Trade Defence Regulations: Identifying Similar Trends

Abstract

This article intends to offer an overview of the most recent, as well as historical European Commission (‘Commission’) practice of implementing \WTO Dispute Settlement Body (‘DSB’) rulings and judgments of the European Union Courts of Justice (‘CJEU’) in favour of successful \applicants. The success consisted in the annulment of a Commission (or formerly, Council) Regulation imposing EU anti-dumping and \countervailing measures. This practice evolved over the last years and may still not be completely settled. Based on our in depth review conducted \for this article, we cannot but conclude that the reason is that the European Union’s (‘EU’) trade defence policy has and keeps evolving towards \more protection of its domestic industries. As a result of this development, we have witnessed how EU institutions, including the Courts, have \assisted the Commission in maintaining the imposition and collection of EU Trade Defence Instruments (‘TDI’) measures for as long as possible. \This was condoned despite the complete annulment of the regulations imposing those measures. As conclusion, we share some practical recommendations \and provide options to parties interested in challenging an EU TDI measure before the EU Courts or/and WTO. WTO Dispute Settlement Body, European Union Court of Justice, European Commission, anti-dumping, countervailing duty/measure, implementing rulings and judgments, applicants favourable implementation, prospective implementation, retroactivity and non-retroactivity, ‘curable’ illegality, reimbursemen