Moscow: Russia has filed its first case with the World Trade Organization against the European Union, saying it was unfairly charging Russian companies hundreds of millions of dollars for allegedly reducing energy prices in global markets, reports Russia media on Monday.
Under the WTO rules, the consultations must take place within 60 days from the date of the application, which means it’ll most likely to kick off immediately after the New Year holidays.
According to Russian authorities, the EU has been applying so–called energy adjustments on Russian companies accusing them of dumping. However, Russia says the block didn’t take into account prices on the domestic market, as required by international trade law. Even though Russia achieved the status of a market economy in 2002, the EU has kept on viewing it as a country with a non-market economy, and determined whether dumping had occurred by comparing the price of Russian exports with prices on the domestic markets in third countries.
It may be mentioned that dumping is a term used to describe the trading practice when goods are sold abroad below the average price on the exporter’s domestic market. If such dumping is proved to harm the industry of the importer, special protectionist measures like higher import tariffs may be imposed.
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