A. Giacomini, S.p.A. v. United States

15 Ct. Int'l Trade 91, 759 F. Supp. 827, 15 C.I.T. 91, 13 I.T.R.D. (BNA) 1215, 1991 Ct. Intl. Trade LEXIS 62
CourtUnited States Court of International Trade
DecidedMarch 8, 1991
DocketConsolidated Court No. 89-10-00583
StatusPublished

This text of 15 Ct. Int'l Trade 91 (A. Giacomini, S.p.A. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of International Trade primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
A. Giacomini, S.p.A. v. United States, 15 Ct. Int'l Trade 91, 759 F. Supp. 827, 15 C.I.T. 91, 13 I.T.R.D. (BNA) 1215, 1991 Ct. Intl. Trade LEXIS 62 (cit 1991).

Opinion

Musgrave, Judge:

This action is an appeal by the plaintiffs of an administrative review by the Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) of an antidumping order applicable to certain brass fire hose connectors and valves from Italy. 1 The plaintiffs are A. Giacomini, S.p.A., an Italian manufacturer of the merchandise at issue, and Potter-Roemer Co., a principal importer of the merchandise. Plaintiffs challenge Commerce’s resort in the contested review to the “Best Information Available” (“BIA”) methodology for calculating the alleged dumping margin of Giacomini’s products in the United States market during the time period covered by the contested review. Specifically, plaintiffs have sought both at the administrative level and before this Court to refute the charge made by Commerce that Giacomini’s responses to various of Commerce’s inquiries during the review were deficient; concomitantly, plaintiffs challenge Commerce’s use of BIA in response to those alleged deficiencies as being punitive, arbitrary, and unsupported by substantial evidence in the administrative record.

After this litigation had been underway for some time, Commerce conceded that it had indeed erred in most (four out of five) of the respects alleged by plaintiffs. Defendant maintains that Commerce’s recourse to BIA was justified nevertheless, as it argues that Giacomini did not respond satisfactorily to Commerce’s request (the fifth at issue here) for information to be used in deriving a “constructed value” for certain of Giacomini’s exports to the United States. While defendant now agrees that a remand is warranted in the light of the errors conceded to have been made by Commerce, it argues that the Court should not overrule Commerce’s resort to BIA, given its argument that that resort was justified in response to the fifth alleged deficiency, in Giacomini’s submis[92]*92sions on constructed value. Plaintiffs argue that Commerce erred in this fifth respect just as in the other four. Plaintiffs ask the Court to set aside the results of the second review in their entirety and remand this matter to Commerce for further proceedings.

The Court finds that the various allegations of deficiency made by Commerce in the agency proceedings-those which Commerce has subsequently abandoned as well as those which it pursues here - are so intertwined as to prevent the Court from separating them and from appraising the propriety of Commerce’s resort to BIA solely on the basis of the fifth alleged deficiency, in isolation from the other four. Consequently, this action must be remanded to Commerce for both a recalculation of the duty rates involved and a redetermination of whether, in the light of the errors conceded to have been made by Commerce, it is necessary and warranted to use the Best Information Available mechanism for deriving the constructed value of those merchandise models at issue which were valued on that basis, or whether sufficient information has been provided by Giacomini from which such a value can be constructed.

Background

If merchandise is imported into the United States for sale at a price (the “United States price”) less than the “foreign market value” of that merchandise as defined by statute (i.e., if the merchandise is “dumped” in the U.S. market) and injury to an American industry is caused or threatened by the dumping, antidumping duties may be levied against the imports to offset the price differential or “dumping margin.” 19 U.S.C.§ 1673 (1990). In its initial investigation concerning the imports at issue here, Commerce determined that Giacomini had dumped those products at a margin of 6.74 percent and an antidumping duty was applied at that rate against the imports. In the first annual administrative review of that order and of Giacomini’s sales, for the period from 10 July 1984 through 28 February 1986, no dumping was found and the an-tidumping duty rate therefore was reduced to zero. During the second review, challenged in this action and covering the period from March 1986 through February 1987, Commerce concluded that Giacomini’s responses to questionnaires were inadequate; consequently resorting to what it characterized as the best information available, Commerce set the new dumping margin for Giacomini at 85.54 percent, the dumping rate found in the first review for resales of Giacomini’s products in the United States by a non-related European company, Ganbrook, Ltd. No review was conducted for the period from March 1987 through February 1988, and in the most recent review — or the period from March 1988 through February 1989 — Commerce found a dumping rate of 4.51 percent.

When Giacomini challenged the preliminary results of the second review at the agency level, Commerce affirmed those preliminary results in all respects and adopted them in its final determination.2 Thereafter [93]*93plaintiffs commenced a challenge of those results in this Court. The Court granted a consent order temporarily enjoining liquidation of the products at issue but denied plaintiffs’ request for a temporary injunction of the collection of cash deposits at the 85.54 percent rate.

In support of its resort to BIA, Commerce cited five alleged deficiencies in Giacomini’s responses to Commerce questionnaires:

1. Failure to provide a “narrative” on certain variables listed in Giacomini’s submission concerning its Canadian and U.S. export prices;
2. Failure to provide model match information for Canadian sales of each product model sold by Giacomini in the United States;
3. Failure to explain why some shipment dates preceded sale dates in Giacomini’s submission of sales data;
4. Failure to provide information on differences between direct costs (of materials, direct labor, and factory overhead) of products exported to the Unites States and those exported to Canada.
5. Failure to supply adequate information on the costs of production for certain items that Giacomini exported to the United States but did not sell in its home or third-country markets, to enable Commerce to construct a value of those products.

These allegations are addressed in order. First, Commerce faulted Giacomini for failing to respond to a request for a “narrative” explaining a “variable” said to have been listed in Giacomini’s Canadian and U.S. sales data and expressed by Commerce as follows:

pertpay 1 paydatt 1
pertpay 2 paydatt 2
pertpay 3 paydatt 3
pertpay 4 paydatt 4.

Perplexed by this rather arcane jargon and after unsuccessfully seeking clarification of the request, Giacomini finally reported that it was unable to respond. Subsequently it has been discovered that the abbreviations “pertpay” and “paydatt” were concocted by Commerce’s own personnel, not by Giacomini; at the time it requested information on those variables and held Giacomini delinquent for failing to explain them, Commerce did not realize that the mystery was of its own creation. Commerce now concedes its error with regard to this first alleged deficiency.

Second, Commerce alleged that Giacomini failed to provide information that would show for the merchandise models it sold in the United States corresponding models that it sold in Canada.

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Bluebook (online)
15 Ct. Int'l Trade 91, 759 F. Supp. 827, 15 C.I.T. 91, 13 I.T.R.D. (BNA) 1215, 1991 Ct. Intl. Trade LEXIS 62, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/a-giacomini-spa-v-united-states-cit-1991.