Domestic Xanthan Gum Producer Says Recent Review’s Petitioner Lacked Standing

A xanthan gum domestic producer said in an April 8 complaint that an antidumping duty petitioner hadn’t proved it was actually an “interested party,” but that the Commerce Department had let it participate in an administrative review anyway (CP Kelco U.S., Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00059).

Kelco, a domestic producer of xanthan gum and review participant, said that petitioner SAM HPRP Chemicals had lacked standing when it petitioned for the ninth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on xanthan gum from China. SAM called itself both a purchaser and wholesaler of domestic like product, but it hasn’t shown enough evidence of the latter claim, Kelco argued.

At Kelco’s urging, the Commerce Department did issue SAM a “truncated” questionnaire during the review. But, throughout the proceeding, SAM’s multiple responses yielded “limited information” about its purchases and sales, Kelco said.

Commerce then called SAM a “purchaser of domestically-produced xanthan gum” in its final results, saying it had made at least one domestic gum purchase during the review period. That was enough for SAM to have standing, the department said.

But Commerce failed to complete an interested party analysis for SAM, Kelco said. The department also adopted an “arbitrary” definition of the term “wholesaler,” wrongly saying that “wholesaler” is not defined by statute or in the regulation, it claimed.

For a party to be deemed a wholesaler, it should have “actually made a sale during the period of review,” Kelco said. Substantial evidence showed SAM hadn’t, it said. It said statute makes clear that wholesalers only have standing to participate in a review if they are wholesalers of domestic like product.

Commerce was wrong that “domestic like products” need not be domestically produced, as the department said in its result, Kelco said.