DUTCH GRAIN LEVY TEST CASE TO START IN APRIL A large Dutch animal feed compounder will begin formal legal proceedings early next month as a test case on the way the EC grain co-responsibility levy is applied, a spokesman for Dutch grain and feed trade association, Het Comite, told Reuters. Het Comite has been co-ordinating national actions against alleged distortions caused by currency factors in the levy and, since December, has lodged more than 80 individual cases with the Business Appeal Court in The Hague. The basic complaint is that the levy does not take account of currency cross-rates of exchange and therefore compounders in countries with strong currencies may have to pay more in their own currency than is paid to them by producers in another country. Het Comite has obtained a temporary agreement that companies can pay the amount they receive toward the levy rather than paying a full guilder amount to the Dutch grain commodity board. The spokesman said Het Comite will provide financial and legal backing to the test case in the Business Administration Court in the Hague. Oral proceedings are to begin on April 10. The spokesman said Het Comite finally selected the company for the test case from among the 80 lodged "because the bill (the firm) received from the commodity board for payment of the levy contained significant currency distortions and involved grain from a wide variety of origins." The name of the company is not being made public. The Administration Court is not expected to make a final ruling on the case in the near future. The Het Comite spokesman said it was very likely it would refer questions to the Appeal Court in Luxembourg, and "as a result it could easily be another nine to 12 months before the matter is finally resolved." Meanwhile, the actions by Dutch animal feed compounders are putting pressure on the commodity board to urge the Dutch government to follow through on earlier statements and seek a complete review in Brussels of the way in which the levy is collected, the spokesman said. Het Comite, as a member of FEFAC, the association of European animal feed manufacturers, is also a party to actions protesting the whole levy in the Luxembourg appeal court.