The complaint concerned the refusal by the European Commission to put on hold an anti-dumping investigation into imports of Chinese aluminium products or, in the alternative, to give an Italian importer more time to respond to information requests sent to it by the Commission. The Commission replied that, according to the applicable rules, it could not put the investigation on hold or grant the complainant further extensions.
The Ombudsman noted that the Commission had already extended the deadlines to take account of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis. The Ombudsman found that, by adopting temporary rules enabling the deadlines for submitting information to anti-dumping investigations to be extended, the Commission responded appropriately to the particular challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis. She therefore closed the case with a finding of no maladministration.
