General Court Restores Common Sense in Anti-Circumvention Rules

EU General Court brings legal clarity on anti circumvention rules

A recent judgment of the EU General Court brings long-awaited legal clarity on a controversial interpretation of anti-circumvention rules that had significant implications for stainless steel importers and distributors.

On 4 March 2026, the General Court of the European Union delivered an important judgment in Case T-379/23 (Çolakoğlu Metalurji v Commission), addressing a question that had created growing legal uncertainty in recent anti-circumvention investigations.

At the heart of the dispute was a seemingly technical issue: can metallurgical transformation processes such as hot rolling or cold rolling be treated as an “assembly or completion operation” under EU anti-circumvention rules?

The distinction is far from academic. If a manufacturing process is classified as an assembly operation, the much stricter conditions of Article 13(2) of the EU Basic Anti-Dumping Regulation apply. In such cases, circumvention may be established where parts originating in the country subject to measures represent 60% or more of the value of the finished product, unless the value added during the operation exceeds 25% of the manufacturing cost.

In the case of flat-rolled stainless steel products, rolling operations typically do not meet these thresholds.

The “Single-Component Assembly” Narrative

In recent circumvention investigations, the European Commission adopted an increasingly expansive interpretation of the concept of “assembly or completion operation” under the EU’s anti-circumvention rules.

In order to bring rolling operations within the scope of the “completion” concept, the Commission characterised such processes as involving “minimal processing”. On that basis, the transformation of stainless steel through hot or cold rolling was subsequently described as the “assembly of a single component”, thereby allowing the application of the assembly-specific circumvention rules set out in Article 13(2).

This characterisation sits uneasily with the industrial reality of stainless steel production. Rolling is not a marginal finishing activity but a capital-intensive industrial process. A modern hot-rolling mill typically requires investments exceeding EUR 1 billion, while a cold-rolling facility may represent an investment of EUR 300–400 million.

This reasoning notably appeared in recent anti-circumvention investigations concerning imports of stainless steel products originating in Indonesia and consigned to the Union via third countries. First applied in the investigation concerning hot-rolled flat products consigned from Turkey, it was subsequently extended to investigations concerning cold-rolled flat products consigned from Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam. Here again, the Commission decided the hot or cold rolling of Indonesian input material could fall within the scope of “assembly or completion operation”.

Retroactive Duties for Importers

At first glance, a dispute about the “assembly” of a single piece may seem trivial. Absurd even.  In reality, it touches on a fundamental issue for importers: legal certainty.

Unlike standard anti-dumping or anti-subsidy investigations — where duties can only be imposed after a minimum investigation period and only if the Commission has formally ordered the registration of imports — anti-circumvention investigations may expose imports to anti-dumping or countervailing duties from the very moment the investigation is initiated.

This creates a situation where goods ordered in good faith — already in production or even on their way to the EU — may become exposed to substantial anti-dumping duties overnight, with no way of reversing course. Whether such duties apply only becomes clear once the investigation is concluded, typically around nine months after its initiation.

It is precisely in this context that the Court’s clarification of the limits of the “assembly or completion operation” concept becomes particularly important.

Court Orders Return to Common Sense

The Court categorically rejected the semantic construction according to which rolling operations could be characterised as the “assembly of a single component”. It then clarified that such processing cannot be treated as a “completion operation” within the meaning of the anti-circumvention provisions. Finally, the Court concluded that the Commission had erred in law by applying the assembly-specific circumvention rules.

As the Court’s ruling demonstrates, the effectiveness of trade defence instruments cannot justify interpretations that stretch the wording of a legislation beyond recognition. If the policy objective is to broaden the scope of existing rules, this must be done transparently through legislation — not through semantic reinterpretation.

Concretely…

For economic operators, the judgment represents an important step toward restoring legal clarity and predictability in the application of EU anti-circumvention rules.

The Commission may of course decide to appeal the judgment before the Court of Justice of the European Union. One may nevertheless hope that the return to legal common sense reflected in this judgment will also guide its next steps in this matter.