ITC Injury Finding Dropped Data in Favor of Anecdotal Evidence, Methionine Exporter Argues

The International Trade Commission's finding that imports of methionine from Spain and Japan injured the domestic methionine industry is not based on substantial evidence and should be remanded, exporter Adisseo Espana and its U.S. subsidiary argued in a Nov. 12 complaint to the Court of International Trade. In finding domestic industry harm, the ITC spurned the commission's own traditional quarterly price comparisons in favor of "less reliable, anecdotal evidence," Adisseo said (Adisseo Espana S.A., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00562).

The case challenges the material injury finding in the commission's antidumping duty investigation on methionine from Spain and Japan. In the investigation, the ITC looked into the price effects of the imports from these two nations, where it relied on purportedly anecdotal evidence to find significant underselling, while ignoring the fact that the ITC's quarterly price comparisons showed overselling, Adisseo said.

"One of the arguments on which the Commission rested its finding of adverse price effects was Petitioner’s eleventh hour argument that lower priced bids for subject imports caused Petitioner’s prices to fall, even though the quarterly pricing comparisons demonstrated that the actual prices at which subject imports were sold were predominantly higher than those of the Petitioner," the complaint said. "Not only was this argument illogical, this argument was not supported by any meaningful evidence of lost revenues, which is where the consequences of this competition would have been manifest and was inconsistent with substantial evidence that purchasers are relatively price insensitive."

The ITC also looked into the volume effects of the imports from Spain and Japan. However, in doing so, the commission failed to look at the large dip in imports of methionine from "non-subject third country sources, in particular from China," when finding that the volume of imports was significant. "The Commission ignored the significant absolute growth in the domestic industry’s shipments over the period of investigation, and equally ignored information that the domestic industry would not have been able to increase its U.S. shipments more than it did," the complaint said.