CIT Sides With Commerce in Indian Honey AD Investigation

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 1 upheld the final determination in an antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from India, siding with the Commerce Department on the agency's decision to have respondents report their acquisition costs and to verify that information from a subset of their suppliers due top a lack of data from hundreds of individual honey producers.

The American Honey Producers Association and Sioux Honey Association had argued that the use of acquisition costs was contrary to the agency’s practice and, absent reliable data, Commerce should have relied upon the National Horticultural Board of India (see 2305250051). Judge Mark Barnett noted that agencies are permitted to deviate from past practices if they provide reasoning, which he said the agency did in this case. Regardless of the reliability of the NHBI data, Commerce was not obligated to use it since the agency had already "adopted a reasonable methodology," Barnett said.

Barnett also found that Commerce was not required to further verify the costs of the beekeepers and middlemen suppliers. The associations' arguments that Commerce could have used alternate data sources or relied on adverse facts was "without merit," Barnett said. Rather than engaging in a "seemingly pointless verification exercise," Commerce lawfully reviewed data to ensure completeness. After filling gaps in the record with plaintiff-provided information, Commerce found that the calculated acquisition costs were still below those of respondents Allied Natural Products and Ambrosia Natural Products, making further verification unnecessary.

Arguments by the honey associations regarding alleged failure of Ambrosia to supply requested information also were unconvincing to Barnett. While Commerce had acknowledged that the financial statements provided by Ambrosia were missing data, the department concluded that that data wasn't critical to the investigation and acknowledged that Ambrosia kept Commerce apprised of delays in assembling the statements.

Commerce explained that Ambrosia's submissions were sufficient and Barnett held that Commerce's determination that Ambrosia didn't "impede the investigation" was consistent with the purpose of the questionnaires. "While Plaintiffs would have preferred that Commerce concluded differently, Plaintiffs provide no basis for the court to disturb the agency’s weighing of the facts," Barnett said.

Barnett likewise sided with Commerce's finding that the late submissions were used only as part of its verification exercise and not as new factual information. Despite arguments by the honey associations that they were deprived of opportunities to respond to the financial statements, Barnett found that they had opportunities to raise those arguments throughout the course of the proceeding. "In sum, Commerce responded to each of the objections raised by Plaintiffs" and explained its decision to accept the financial records provided, Barnett said.

(American Honey Producers Association v. U.S., Slip Op. 23-128, CIT # 22-00195, dated 09/01/23; Judge: Mark Barnett; Attorneys: Joshua Morey of Kelley Drye for plaintiffs American Honey Producers Association and Sioux Honey Association; Kara Westercamp for defendant U.S. government; Robert G. Gosselink of Trade Pacific for defendant-intervenors Allied Natural Product and Ambrosia Natural Products (India) Pvt. Ltd.)