Administrative Court dismisses trade remedies judicial review and finds claimant to have breached duty of candour

09/05/25

The Administrative Court today handed down its judgment in R (Caterpillar) v Secretary of State for Business and Trade and Trade Remedies Authority [2025] EWHC 1124 (Admin).

The claimant, Caterpillar, a manufacturer of excavators, brought a judicial review concerning an anti-dumping investigation conducted by the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) in respect of Chinese-manufactured excavators. Caterpillar submitted that the TRA had acted unlawfully in publishing a ‘provisional affirmative determination’ which provisionally found that excavators were being dumped in the UK and recommended the imposition of a guarantee on importers. It further argued that the Secretary of State had acted unlawfully in accepting that recommendation.

The claim was heard as a rolled up and expedited judicial review. Mr Justice Saini refused permission on all grounds. He firstly accepted the TRA and Secretary of State’s submissions that the claim had become academic, since the provisional affirmative determination had been overtaken by a new decision made by the TRA after claim had been filed. In any event, each of the grounds were held to be unarguable as both of the challenged decisions were “unimpeachable” [179].

Moreover, Mr Justice Saini made the unusual finding that Caterpillar had breached its duty of candour by failing to disclose factual information going to an issue which was “at the heart of the complaints” [169]. Caterpillar had failed to disclose until very late in the proceedings that it had been aware of the investigation for over a year when it first approached the TRA and asked for its data to be taken into account. Given that Caterpillar’s claim rested – in material part – on the allegation that it was procedurally unfair not to consider their data at this late stage, Saini J found that this breach was particularly serious. He took the unusual step of saying that he would have refused permission because of the failure to comply with the duty of candour alone.

The Judgment can be found here.