"The antidumping duty should never have been assessed," Renewable Fuels Assn. President and CEO Bob Dinneen said. "We feel vindicated and thank the EU General Court for its commonsense ruling."
The court found that the duty of about $83 per metric ton was invalid because the commission applied one weighted average duty to all U.S. ethanol imports rather than separate duty rates for each of the major producers, as is common practice under EU law and WTO rules.
In March, nine U.S. farm-state lawmakers called on the Obama administration to use the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations to push back against the duty, which they said has eliminated the US share of the European ethanol market.