Crawfish Processors Alliance v. U.S.
| Decision Date | 13 September 2005 |
| Docket Number | Court No. 02-00376.,Slip Op. 05-123. |
| Citation | 395 F.Supp.2d 1330 |
| Parties | CRAWFISH PROCESSORS ALLIANCE; Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry; Bob Odom, Commissioner, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant, and Hontex Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Louisiana Packing Company; Qingdao Rirong Foodstuff Co., Ltd. and Yancheng Haiteng Aquatic Products & Foods Co., Ltd; Bo Asia, Inc., Grand Nova International, Inc., Pacific Coast Fisheries Corp., Fujian Pelagic Fishery Group Co., Qingdao Zhengri Seafood Co., Ltd. and Yangcheng Yaou Seafood Co., Defendant-Intervenors and Plaintiffs. |
| Court | U.S. Court of International Trade |
Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg, L.L.P. (Will E. Leonard and John C. Steinberger) for Crawfish Processors Alliance, Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, and Bob Odom, Commissioner, plaintiffs.
Coudert Brothers LLP (John M. Gurley and Matthew J. McConkey) for Hontex Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Louisiana Packing Company, defendant-intervenor and plaintiff.
Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General; David M. Cohen, Director; Patricia M. McCarthy, Assistant Director, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice (David S. Silverbrand); Marisa Beth Goldstein, Office of Chief Counsel for Import Administration, United States Department of Commerce, for the United States, defendant, of counsel.
The Court will uphold the United States Department of Commerce's ("Commerce") redetermination pursuant to the Court's remand unless it is "unsupported by substantial evidence on the record, or otherwise not in accordance with law." 19 U.S.C. § 1516a(b)(1)(B)(i) (2000). Substantial evidence is Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 477, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951) (quoting Consol. Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 229, 59 S.Ct. 206, 83 L.Ed. 126 (1938)). Substantial evidence "is something less than the weight of the evidence, and the possibility of drawing two inconsistent conclusions from the [same] evidence does not prevent an administrative agency's finding from being supported by substantial evidence." Consolo v. Fed. Mar. Comm'n, 383 U.S. 607, 620, 86 S.Ct. 1018, 16 L.Ed.2d 131 (1966) (citations omitted).
The Court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 19 U.S.C. § 1516a (2000) and 28 U.S.C. § 1581(c) (2000).
The relevant facts and procedural history in this case are set forth in the Court's remand opinion, Crawfish Processors Alliance v. United States, 28 CIT ___, 343 F.Supp.2d 1242 (2004), of which familiarity is presumed. A brief summary is also included here. On April 22, 2002, Commerce issued its final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on freshwater crawfish from the People's Republic of China covering the period of review ("POR") from September 1, 1999, through August 31, 2000. See Notice of Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review, and Final Partial Recission of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review of Freshwater Crawfish Tail Meat from the People's Republic of China ("Final Results"), 67 Fed.Reg. 19,546 (Apr. 22, 2002). Plaintiffs, Crawfish Processors Alliance, Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, and Bob Odom, Commissioner (collectively, "CPA") and defendant-intervenors and plaintiffs, Hontex Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Louisiana Packing Company ("Hontex"), Qingdao Rirong Foodstuff Co., Ltd., Yancheng Haiteng Aquatic Products & Foods Co., Ltd., Bo Asia, Inc., Grand Nova International, Inc., Pacific Coast Fisheries Corp., Fujian Pelagic Fishery Group Co., Qingdao Zhengri Seafood Co., Ltd. and Yangcheng Yaou Seafood Co. filed a motion for judgment upon the agency record challenging various aspects of the Final Results. On May 6, 2004, the Court remanded this matter in part to Commerce with instructions to 1) include Hontex's March 2002, submissions ("Hontex's Submissions") and explain their effect, if any, on the Final Results; 2) explain why Commerce's collapsing methodology for non-market economy ("NME") country exporters is a permissible interpretation of the antidumping duty statute; and 3) explain Commerce's finding that Jiangsu Hilong International Trade Co., Ltd. ("Jiangsu") and Ningbo Nanlian Frozen Foods Company, Ltd. ("Nanlian")1 should be collapsed. See Crawfish, 28 CIT at ___, 343 F.Supp.2d at 1272. The Final Results were affirmed with regard to all other issues. See id.
On November 2, 2004, Commerce submitted its final remand results pursuant to the Court remand. See Final Results of Determination Pursuant to Court Remand ("Final Remand Results"). Hontex filed comments on January 31, 2005. See Comments Def.'s Resp. Remand Issued Ct. ("Hontex's Comments"). Commerce filed its response to Hontex's Comments on March 17, 2005. See Def.'s Resp. Opp'n Def.-Intervenors' Comments Upon Commerce's Final Results Redetermination Pursuant Ct. Remand ("Commerce's Resp."). CPA filed its response to Hontex's Comments on March 17, 2005. See Pls.' Resp. Def.-Intervenor's Comments Remand Determination ("CPA's Resp."). The Court heard oral arguments from the parties on May 9, 2005.
In the Final Results, Commerce rejected two submissions made by Hontex, dated March 19, 2002, and March 20, 2002, as untimely new factual information. See Crawfish, 28 CIT at ___, 343 F.Supp.2d at 1261-62. The Court held that Commerce improperly rejected these submissions. See id. Accordingly, the Court instructed Commerce to include Hontex's Submissions in the administrative record, and "explain what bearing, if any, [Hontex's] submissions have on Commerce's final determination." Id. at ___, 343 F.Supp.2d at 1262 (emphasis added). Commerce did so and determined that Hontex's Submissions did not alter its reasoning that the Spanish Study2 was an unreliable source of information for valuing live whole crawfish during the POR. See Final Remand Results at 7-27. Consequently, Commerce reaffirmed its decision to use Australian data as the best available information to calculate normal value during the POR. See id. at 18.
Hontex argues that its submissions corroborate the Spanish Study and that Commerce's continual rejection of the Spanish Study is unsupported by substantial evidence.3 See Hontex's Comments at 2 & 20. In Hontex's Submissions, three Spanish companies state that they informed Commerce that the prices in the Spanish Study were an accurate reflection of crawfish prices in Spain during the POR. See id. at 14-16. Hontex asserts that Commerce unreasonably determined that a chart of crawfish prices included in Hontex's Submissions was not reliable enough to verify the prices used in the Spanish Study. See id. at 17-19. Hontex notes that the trends and price ranges reported in the chart are identical to the Spanish Study, thus further corroborating it. See id. at 18-19. Finally, Hontex argues that its submission of a newspaper article dated August 2001, also supports the prices used in the Spanish Study. See id. at 19-20.
Contrary to Hontex's arguments, the Court did not order Commerce to reconsider every aspect of its decision of whether Australian or Spanish data was the best available information to determine the surrogate value of live whole crawfish. Rather, the Court's instructions were narrower in scope. Commerce was to reconsider its decision to use Australian or Spanish data only if Hontex's submissions were so compelling that its original decision to not use the Spanish data became unreasonable. If Commerce determined that Hontex's submissions had little or no impact on its decision that Australian data was the best information available, then it could reasonably assert its original decision in the Final Results. The Court finds, based on the reasons stated below, that Commerce followed the Court's remand instructions.
Commerce concluded that while three Spanish companies stated that the prices in the Spanish Study were accurate, the Spanish Study still failed to overcome the problems Commerce identified regarding how it was structured, conducted, and verified. See Final Remand Results at 12-14. Furthermore, Commerce did not find the chart of Spanish prices to be a reliable source which independently corroborated the prices in the Spanish Study. See id. at 14-15. Commerce stated that Hontex failed to adequately explain the context in which the chart was prepared and used. See id. at 15. Commerce also found that the newspaper article "offers no support to the argument that [Commerce] should rely on the Spanish study" because the crawfish price referenced therein are not specific to the POR. Id. at 15. The Court finds that Commerce reasonably explained how each document in Hontex's Submissions was either unpersuasive or unreliable and did not overcome Commerce's apprehension of the reliability and veracity of the Spanish Study. Commerce's explanation why Hontex's Submissions had no effect on its Final Results is reasonable and supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, the Court holds that Commerce properly followed the remand instructions.
In the Final Results, Commerce concluded that Jiangsu and Nanlian should be collapsed and assigned a single antidumping duty rate because the two companies did not present sufficient evidence demonstrating that their relationship was different from that which formed the basis of Commerce's original collapsing determination in the 1997-1998 POR. See Crawfish, 28 CIT at ___, 343 F.Supp.2d at 1265. The Court determined...
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Crawfish Processors Alliance v. U.S.
...Court of International Trade affirmed Commerce's first remand results, but remanded a second time. Crawfish Processors Alliance v. United States, 395 F.Supp.2d 1330 (Ct. Int'l Trade 2005). On December 29, 2005, the Court of International Trade affirmed Commerce's second remand results. Dism......