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WTO: 2006 NEWS ITEMS

Dispute Settlement Body 2 February 2006

DSB holds a special meeting for aircraft subsidy dispute brought by the EC against US

The EC asked for a special meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body to be convened Thursday 2 February to request the establishment of a panel in reference to the case US — measures affecting trade in large civil aircraft (DS317).

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NOTE:
This summary has been prepared by the WTO Secretariat’s Information and Media Relations Division to help public understanding about developments in WTO disputes. It is not a legal interpretation of the issues, and it is not intended as a complete account of the issues. These can be found in the reports themselves and in the minutes of the Dispute Settlement Body’s meetings.

Request for panel establishment  back to top

These are cases that have completed the consultation phase, the first stage of a dispute. When consultations have failed, member governments are entitled to ask for a panel to be set up to examine the dispute. According to the rules, the respondent can reject the first request. At the second request, a panel is automatically established.

DS317: US — measures affecting trade in large civil aircraft

The EC announced that it requested this meeting to prepare the ground for resolving a number of procedural matters that have risen in this dispute. The EC explained in its statement that during the information-gathering process under Annex V of the Subsidy and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement initiated by the DSB on 23 September 2005, the US refused to provide information on 13 subsidy programmes, stating that they were not initially listed during the preliminary consultation on 6 October 2004. As a result, the EC considered that it has been deprived of its rights to access the documents essential, in particular regarding NASA and Departments of Defence subsidies, to prepare its case against the US.

To resolve this situation, the EC requested at this meeting that the DSB establish a panel and initiate further the procedures for developing information-gathering under Annex V of the SCM Agreement.

The US said that it appreciated the EC's steps to address those concerns at this DSB meeting. Notwithstanding, the US made the remarks that it had already pointed out numerous procedural deficiencies at the first DSB meeting that considered the original EC panel request (WT/DS317/2) on 13 June 2005. In addition, the US informed the DSB that it had discussions recently with the EC on some procedural questions that were raised because of some overlap between this new panel request and the EC's earlier panel request. Since the discussions have not yet reached a conclusion, the US objected to the establishment of a panel at this meeting.

The EC's panel request was therefore blocked by the US.

Next meeting  back to top

The next regular meeting of the DSB will be on 17 February 2006.