Antidumping investigations of the European Union in the time of pandemic COVID-19

Antidumping policy of the EU aims at protecting EU producers against unfair practices of foreign companies supplying the EU market. The economic recession could stimulate either the utilization of unfair practices by the foreign businesses, or also the effort of domestic companies to obtain the protection against the foreign competition. As a result, there may be an increase in the number of antidumping investigations. The aim of this paper is to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic and the following economic recession has affected the antidumping investigations in the EU. We found that the number of antidumping initiations has not significantly increased in 2020 compared to previous years. However, pandemic COVID-19 may have negative impact on antidumping investigations duration due to restrictions concerning spot verifications as well as time-limits prolongations. This may limit the ability of the EU to respond quickly to unfair practices by foreign suppliers.