Chinese electric car makers are filing challenges over the tariffs in an EU court

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Chinese electric car makers BYD, Geely and SAIC have challenged EU import duties before the EU Court of Justice, filings on the court’s website showed on Thursday.

The European Union imposed tariffs on electric cars made in China at the end of October after an anti-subsidy investigation, including 17.0% for BYD, 18.8% for Geely, and 35.3% for SAIC, on top of the EU’s standard auto import duties of 10%. .

Court files show that the three submitted their complaints to the General Court, the lower chamber of the European Court of Justice, on Tuesday, one day before the deadline for filing appeals. Proceedings before the General Court last on average 18 months and can be appealed.

No further details were provided about the cases.

The European Commission said it is aware of these issues and has two months and ten days to prepare its defence.

It is not clear whether there will also be challenges from other EV makers, including European companies producing in China, or the China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME), which represented Chinese EV producers.

Challenges are likely to include arguments about the assessment of subsidies, the quantification of harm to EU industry, and the Commission’s unusual decision to launch a case on its own, rather than pursuing an industry complaint.

SAIC is expected to raise the issue of its much higher tariff. This came after it decided that it was not cooperating with the investigation, allowing the committee to fill in the missing sections with selected available facts.

China’s electric car makers also complained that Tesla, the largest exporter of electric vehicles from China to the European Union, was not included in the official sample, from which the price of other companies is calculated. The companies sampled were BYD, Geely, and SAIC.

Tesla received the lowest additional tariff at 7.8%. Had they been part of the sample, the cooperating companies would have benefited from a lower tariff than the 20.7% they now face.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Thomas Janowski)