On 13 March 2020, the European Commission published a Notice on the consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak on antidumping and anti-subsidy investigations (the Notice). Pursuant to the Notice, the COVD-19 outbreak will affect the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations carried out by the European Commission as follows: 1. Suspension of verification visits The Commission decided to suspend all verification visits to the affected areas until further notice. Instead, the Commission will carefully examine the information provided by interested parties in the framework of the investigations and cross-check it with information available from other sources. Moreover, if the Commission considers the information submitted inaccurate or incomplete, it will base its findings on verified or other proven facts on the record of the investigation. In view of this, it becomes essential for all exporting producers cooperating with the European Commission to provide a complete, accurate and substantiated questionnaire response supplemented by all necessary annexes and worksheets in order to enable the Commission to verify and reconcile the data without visiting the company’s premises. 2. Extended deadlines Due to the extraordinary circumstances, the Commission may grant a 7-day extension to companies located in areas affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Furthermore, the Commission will consider granting a longer extension if the requesting company is particularly affected by additional substantial safety measures (such as quarantine periods and/or mandatory factory closures). In order to qualify for an additional extension, the requesting company has to provide a sufficient explanation on how the additional time would help to prepare a more comprehensive questionnaire response. It is also necessary to describe how the additional substantial safety measures affect the requesting company’s capacity to provide the required information. It must be noted that the Notice does not address the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the on-going second review of the steel safeguard measures. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the timeframe of the review or any of its substantive aspects will be affected by the pandemic. Please click here to access the Notice.
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