On 12 December, the EU Forced Labour Regulation (“Regulation”) was published in the EU Official Journal. The publication is following the EU Council’s approval of the Regulation on 19 November 2024. The text of the Regulation was approved by qualified majority with 25 EU Member States voting in favour and 2 EU Member States abstaining from voting. The Regulation was signed by the President of the European Parliament and the President of the EU Council…
In a landmark ruling on 21 November 2024, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) dismissed an appeal, upholding the General Court of the European Union’s original decision that relocation of production from the US to Thailand with the dominant purpose of avoiding EU retaliatory tariffs on US-origin goods could not be “economically justified” and as such falls foul of the EU’s “anti-circumvention” rules. This decision could have wide-ranging impacts, including a significant impact on companies’…
Companies engaged in continuous production processes may face challenges when using the EU inward processing procedure. For background, inward processing allows an EU company to import materials without having to pay import duties and other charges like anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties, if the product made with these imported materials is exported. First, EU customs law allows companies to use inward processing if the imported non-EU materials used in the production can be identified in the…
Under EU customs law, storing and warehousing EU and non-EU goods is possible if certain conditions are met. However, since 2020, non-EU goods subject to anti-dumping, countervailing, or safeguard measures, can no longer be stored together with EU goods. This is because EU customs law now states that non-EU goods subject to anti-dumping measures do not have the same commercial quality as EU goods, and goods that do not have the same commercial quality cannot…
The rules (Statute) of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) have recently changed. The changes aim to enhance the EU judicial process and reduce the workload of the CJEU. The number of requests for preliminary rulings have increased significantly over the years. In cases concerning preliminary rulings, EU member state courts ask for the opinion of the CJEU on issues of EU law to help give a judgment in a national case.…
On 24 September, the European Commission (“Commission”) announced that, as a general policy measure, it would start automatically registering imports of products subject to anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations, including in ongoing investigations. Until now, complainants had to request the Commission to register imports based on evidence of stockpiling (i.e., of increased imports during the investigation). On 24 October, the Commission published a several regulations in fact registering imports in all ongoing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations.…
On 4 October 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered judgments in Front Polisario (joined cases C‑778/21 P and C-798/21 P and joined cases C‑779/21 P and C-799/21 P). These judgments concern appeals brought by the European Commission and the Council of the EU against judgments of the General Court of the EU annulling EU decisions related to agreements between the EU and Morocco involving the Western Sahara territory. The EU…
This blog concerns an update of our previous blog on the extension of the definition of “consigned from”, to be found here. In 2023, the EU applied anti-dumping or anti-subsidy duties (together “AD/AS duties”) on imports of 141 products from 20 countries. The EU regularly extends these duties to imports of these products from other countries to counter circumvention.As context, to see whether AD/AS duties apply, you need to look at the non-preferential origin of…
On 23 September 2024, the European Commission published the proposal to amend the EU Combined Nomenclature (“CN”). We set our below key updates in this proposal: The declaration of goods upon import, export, or when subject to intra-Community trade statistics between EU Member States is based on the CN. This sets the customs duty rate that is applicable as well as determines how the products are handled for statistical purposes. Therefore, the CN is an…
On 2 October 2024, after months of speculation, the EU Commission announced a proposal for a further 12 months of “phasing-in” time for the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (“EUDR”), as well as the publication of its long-awaited guidelines and updated FAQs relating to the EUDR (see press release here). The announcement of the extension comes after multiple global stakeholders, including German chancellor Olaf Scholz, called for implementation to be delayed amidst concerns about…