Judgment_paragraph 8 · Council of the European Union v Alumina d.o.o (C-393/13 P)

8First of all, the Council takes the view that the General Court’s assessment, in paragraphs 36 to 41 of the judgment under appeal, concerning the second part of the second plea in law raised by Alumina in its action, is vitiated by an error of law in so far as the General Court misconstrued the concept of sales carried out ‘in the ordinary course of trade’ within the meaning of Article 2(1) and (6) of the basic regulation. The General Court, it submits, erred in law in holding that sales which were not carried out in the ordinary course of trade by reason of the fact that the prices included a premium intended to cover the risk of non-payment by the purchaser, which is not connected to the value of the product, must not be taken into account in order to calculate the normal value. Such an interpretation of the concept of ‘sales carried out in the ordinary course of trade’ is, the Council submits, not substantiated either by the basic regulation or by the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (GATT) included in Annex 1A to the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) signed at Marrakech on 15 April 1994 (OJ 1994 L 336, p. 3) and approved by Council Decision 94/800/EC of 22 December 1994 concerning the conclusion on behalf of the European Community, as regards matters within its competence, of the agreements reached in the Uruguay Round multilateral negotiations (1986-1994) (OJ 1994 L 336, p. 1). The Council also takes the view that paragraph 17 of the judgment in Minolta Camera v Council, C‑178/87, EU:C:1992:112, cited by the General Court in paragraph 27 of the judgment under appeal, referred to in paragraph 38 of that judgment, does not support the General Court’s interpretation.