Apache Footwear in southern China's Guangdong province has lodged a lawsuit against the European Union's anti-dumping tariffs, company officials said on Sunday.

Guo Weiwen, a manager of the Taiwanese company, said that they filed the suit at the Court of First Instance, Europe's second-highest court, on Friday.

Guo said they were among the only five of more than 1,200 affected Chinese shoemakers which are continuing with the proceedings.

Last week, four other Chinese shoe producers began legal action over the EU's two-year anti-dumping duties of 16.5 percent on leather shoes made in China beginning Oct. 7.

The four are Aokang Group and Taima Shoes Group from the eastern Zhejiang province, and Taiwan's Golden Step Industrial Co, Ltd. and Hong Kong's Xinsheng Gangyuan Shoes Group in Guangdong.

Guo said the EU had failed to routinely and impartially check the prices at her company, and gave no explanations as to why the company had been denied market economy status.

The EU's across-the-board duties on different companies were in obvious violations of the laws and regulations of the World Trade Organization and those of the EU itself, she said.

The Golden Step Industrial Co Ltd, the only Chinese shoemaker with market economy status, is still subject to 9.7 percent anti-dumping duties, said Guo.

"We were left with no other choice but to go to court," Wang Zhentao, President of Aokang, China's largest privately owned shoemaker, said earlier.

"The EU only reviewed ten Chinese shoemakers," said Pu Lingchen, Aukang's lawyer. "Contrary to the common practice, it didn't send Aokang any written explanations on why they failed to include the company on the list of companies to be reviewed."

Pu, widely regarded as China's top anti-dumping lawyer, said the EU's regulations on anti-dumping prescribed that the EU should review the market economy status of all the companies involved.

Many insiders believe the case could last two to four years and cost up to two million yuan (255,750 U.S. dollars).

As a result, 300 shoemakers in southeastern Fujian Province have abandoned their planned lawsuit.

But Wang is still confident of winning the case.

"No matter how complicated the legal procedures are and how tough our task is, we believe in justice," he said in late October.

Chong Quan, spokesman with the Ministry of Commerce, has said that the EU's anti-dumping measures against Chinese leather shoe imports lacked "sufficient and factual evidence".

Su Chaoying, deputy director of the China Leather Association, said, "The lawsuit will help Chinese shoemakers win more support from shoe retailers and importers in the EU when the anti-dumping case is reviewed in 2008."

Chen Lipeng, an official with Guangdong Foreign Trade Bureau, said, "The lawsuits reflect more Chinese companies have begun to deal with international trade frictions actively, and will help to prevent other countries from imposing similar anti-dumping duties."

Source: Xinhua