2022 part4

10/ Colombia initiates appeal arbitration in frozen fries dispute, discloses panel report

10 OCTOBER 2022

Colombia has initiated arbitration proceedings under Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) to review the findings of a WTO dispute panel in “Colombia — Anti-Dumping Duties on Frozen Fries from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands” (DS591). The notice of appeal was circulated to WTO members on 10 October. In addition, Colombia and the European Union, the complainant in the dispute, agreed to make public the panel findings.

On 13 July 2020, Colombia and the EU notified the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) that they had agreed on procedures for “arbitration under Article 25 of the DSU to decide any appeal from any final report” issued to the parties in dispute DS591.  Under those agreed procedures, a party’s notice of recourse to arbitration under Article 25 is described as a “notice of appeal”.

The panel’s final report was issued to the parties on a confidential basis on 29 August 2022. On 12 September, Colombia asked the panel to suspend its work, thus not circulating the report.

Agreeing to the parties’ request, the dispute panel did not circulate its final report, and instead transmitted it to the parties, who, by agreement, made it public as part of Colombia’s “notice of appeal”.

By resorting to an arbitration under Article 25 of the DSU, Colombia has chosen to use a mechanism to appeal the panel’s findings through an alternative means of dispute resolution foreseen by the DSU.

This is the first arbitration proceeding based on the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) to which both Colombia and the European Union are participants.

The notice of recourse to arbitration is available here.

Summary of key findings of report

DS591: Colombia — Anti-Dumping Duties on Frozen Fries from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands

Source: wto.org