United States Court of International Trade

Court Sustained Commerce’s Remand Determination

In Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee  v. United States, Court No. 13-346, Slip Op. 16-7 (January 22, 2015) the court reviewed the remand results regarding the seventh administrative review by the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) of the antidumping duty order (“the order”) on certain frozen warmwater shrimp from the People’s Republic of China. In the seventh review, Commerce determined to revoke the order with respect to respondent Zhanjiang Regal Integrated Marine Resources Company, Limited (“Regal”).  Because Regal was not individually examined in the fifth review, Commerce, in the seventh review, requested from Regal information and sales data from the time period covered by that fifth review, “to confirm that Regal did not dump [subject merchandise] during that time,”  and hence to confirm that Regal did not dump for three consecutive years, as required for revocation eligibility under the regulation. As a result of appeals from the Plaintiff Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee (“AHSTAC”) – an association of domestic warmwater shrimp producers that participated in this seventh review, this Court remanded Commerce’s determination to revoke the order as to Regal, ordering the agency to reconsider certain surrogate value data used to determine Regal’s normal value.

On remand, Commerce reconsidered its surrogate country choice for the fifth review period, and “determined to select Thailand as the primary surrogate country [in light of] the proximity of Thailand’s per capita GNI to the PRC’s GNI and because the Thai surrogate value . . . data used to value Regal’s [FOPs] is superior.”  However as to shrimp feed, Commerce used data from Indonesia, because the Thai values for this particular item were unreliable and aberrational.  The reason why Thailand data was used was because while a Fifth Review mandatory respondent’s key input was shrimp larvae, for which the fifth review Indian and Thai data were very nearly indistinguishable, Regal’s key input was broodstock, an FOP for which the only available data on record was from Thailand. Thus the Thai data provided specificity to Regal’s broodstock over any other data available.  Thus, this determination was sustained.

As for the shrimp feed, Commerce “compared the shrimp feed values over the same review periods with respect to the potential surrogate countries relative to Thailand,”  comparing the Thai fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh review data to data from the Philippines, India, and Indonesia (the other potential surrogates satisfying the threshold eligibility criteria) forthe fourth, fifth, and sixth review periods.  Commerce therefore concluded that “Indonesia has the best import prices for shrimp feed during the [fifth review period] from among the potential surrogate countries that are at [a comparable] level of economic development [to] the PRC and are significant producers of comparable merchandise,” whereas data from imports of shrimp feed into Thailand for those periods was aberrational and thus unreliable.  For these reasons the court sustained Commerce’s decision regarding the shrimp feed data as well.