The Court of International Trade today issued a remand for the Commerce Department to reconsider the surrogate market economy data used to evaluate the Chinese exporter Zhanjiang Regal Integrated Marine Resources during the fifth administrative review period (2009-10) for the antidumping duty order on shrimp from China, a nonmarket economy. Picard Kentz & Rowe brought the case on behalf of the Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee (AHSTAC), an association of domestic producers of frozen warmwater shrimp, arguing that Commerce should have used Thai data instead of Indian data.
AHSTAC challenged Commerce’s revocation of the AD order as to Regal in the Final Results of the seventh administrative review, after finding that the exporter sold shrimp from China at not less than fair value for three consecutive years. In the seventh administrative review, Commerce’s revocation was based on a determination that Regal had not sold shrimp at less than fair value during the fifth, sixth, and seventh review periods. While Commerce used Thailand as the surrogate market economy for China in the sixth and seventh review periods, India was used in the fifth – despite the CIT having remanded Commerce’s use of India as a surrogate market economy in the fifth administrative review and AHSTAC significantly augmenting the Thai data on the record in the seventh administrative review.
Senior Judge Pogue ordered remand for Commerce to reconsider the surrogate market economy data it uses to evaluate Regal during the fifth administrative review period. He faulted Commerce for: disregarding CIT precedent; failing to address Thailand being much more economically comparable to China than India; ignoring Regal’s production process; and failing to address AHSTAC’s additional Thai evidence. Remand results are due in July 2015.