Downer Utilities Australia Pty Ltd v Commissioner of the Anti-Dumping Commission [2019] FCA 1190

TAXATION – Customs Act 1901 (Cth) – dumping duty – countervailing duty – where application for an assessment of duty on goods entered for home consumption during a particular importation period omitted a consignment – where the value of the omitted consignment was relatively low – whether the applicant did not provide a full description of the goods imported during the importation period contrary to s 269W(1)(a) – where spreadsheet on the Anti-Dumping Commission (the “ADC”) website did not allow for the claimed excess of interim duty paid to be calculated – whether the application substantially complied with s 269W(1)(e) because it contained nearly all of the data needed to calculate the claimed excess of interim duty paid – whether the application did not contain a statement of the amount by which the applicant contended that the total interim duty paid on the goods exceeded the total duty payable under the Customs Tariff (Anti-Dumping) Act 1975 (Cth) ADMINISTRATIVE LAW – judicial review of decisions of the Commissioner and the Anti-Dumping Review Panel (the “Panel”) – whether the Court has jurisdiction under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth) (the “ADJR Act”) – whether the decisions were excluded from judicial review under the ADJR Act – whether the Panel’s decision was anterior to the process of making, or leading up to the making of, an assessment – where the ADC’s Dumping and Subsidy Manual stated that applications should be lodged in a timely manner so that the ADC has sufficient time to identify problems with information provided by the applicant – where the ADC did not provide the applicant an opportunity to cure the minor deficiencies in the application – where Commissioner rejected the application by reason of the deficiencies – whether there was a denial of procedural fairness – whether the Panel erred in law by not revoking the Commissioner’s rejection decision

Full decision here