ITC Stays With Finding That Spanish Methionine Had Significant Price Effects

The International Trade Commission on April 16 continued to stick by its decision that imports of methionine from Spain had "significant price effects on prices for the domestic like product," part of its finding in an antidumping duty investigation that the imports of the product injured U.S. industry. In remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade, the commission said it considered the "factual accuracy of the volume of lost sales," as instructed by the court, and came to the same conclusion (Adisseo Espana v. United States, CIT # 21-00562).

The trade court in December said that the ITC failed to address a lost sales pricing methodology offered by Spanish exporter Adisseo Espana and its U.S. importer Adisseo USA (see 2312220049). Judge M. Miller Baker noted that, according to Adisseo, the lost sales were a far lower amount than identified by the ITC "when properly calculated."

On remand, the commission said Adisseo "has not challenged the factual accuracy of the total lost sales figure," which was redacted by the commission, but that the company's issue is with how the ITC "contextualized and weighed this evidence by calculating a ratio that compares this volume to the increase in the volume of subject imports."

In the injury investigation, the commission gave context for the volume of confirmed lost sales by "comparing it with two metrics of subject import volume" -- the increase in subject import volumes and the "total reported purchases of subject imports." Both gave context to the volume of lost sales and the "calculations for both comparisons are factually accurate," the remand results said.

"In these investigations, we continue to find that the lost sales volume is probative as reflecting, in a price sensitive market where producers seek to utilize their production capacity to offset high fixed costs, the extent to which lower-priced offers by importers can and did result in the domestic industry losing sales to subject imports," the brief said.

The commission said that Adisseo doesn't dispute the accuracy of the ITC's calculations but rather that "Adisseo simply prefers a different metric." The commission said that, even though the "volume of lost sales accounts for a lesser percentage of these larger data sets relied upon by Adisseo, we continue to find that their volume is significant in these contexts." Using either metric, the ITC's or Adisseo's, the confirmed lost sales numbers "are consistent with and support the Commission's finding that domestic producers faced reducing prices or losing sales to subject imports" due to the "importance of price and the need to maintain high-capacity utilization levels."

The alternative metrics don't "warrant an alteration of the Commission’s analysis of price effects," the remand results said, disagreeing with Adisseo. "Nor do these alternative metrics detract from our finding that the volume of lost sales reflected that domestic producers were forced to lower prices to compete with subject imports and maintain sales volume."