NSK Ltd. v. United States

17 Ct. Int'l Trade 987
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in NSK Ltd. v. United States. Read the opinion of the Court — 798 F. Supp. 721
United States Court of International Trade·Decided September 10, 1993·No. Court No. 92-03-00158·Published

Opinion

Opinion

Tsoucalas, Judge:

Plaintiffs move pursuant to Rule 56.1 of the Rules of this Court for judgment upon the agency record claiming that the Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration (“Commerce”), (1) committed several clerical errors, (2) improperly excluded cost of production data submitted by NSK, (3) incorrectly calculated an-tidumping duty margins on merchandise imported into the United States prior to the period of review, (4) incorrectly deducted direct selling expenses in the U.S. from exporter’s sales price, and (5) erroneously compared normal grade bearings with high precision grade bearings in Tapered Roller Bearings, Finished and Unfinished, and Parts Thereof From Japan; Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review (“Final Results”), 57 Fed. Reg. 4,951 (1992).

On November 20, 1989, Commerce published a notice of initiation of an administrative review of antidumping duty orders covering tapered roller bearings and parts thereof from Japan from October 1, 1988 through September 30, 1989. Initiation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Administrative Reviews, 54 Fed. Reg. 48,010 (1989). Commerce published its preliminary results of the administrative review on May 6, 1991 and estimated the antidumping duty margin to be 30.46% [988]*988for NSK. Tapered Roller Bearings and Parts Thereof, Finished and Unfinished From Japan; Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review (“Preliminary Results”), 56 Fed. Reg. 20,593 (1991). On February 11,1992, Commerce published its Final Results establishing an antidumping duty margin of 40.37% for NSK. Final Results, 57 Fed. Reg. at 4,960.

Discussion

In reviewing a final determination of Commerce, this Court must uphold that determination unless it is “unsupported by substantial evidence on the record, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 19 U.S.C. § 1516a(b)(1)(B) (1988). Substantial evidence has been defined as being “more than a mere scintilla. It means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 477 (1951) (quoting Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 229 (1938)). It is “not within the Court’s domain either to weigh the adequate quality or quantity of the evidence for sufficiency or to reject a finding on grounds of a differing interpretation of the record.” Timken Co. v. United States, 12 CIT 955, 962, 699 F. Supp. 300, 306 (1988), aff’d, 894 F.2d 385 (Fed. Cir. 1990).

1. Clerical Errors:

NSK claims that in its final determination Commerce committed three clerical errors.

A. Identification of Part Number:

First, NSK claims that a 19 digit part number ending in “UOI” was misidentified as ending in “VOI.” Commerce concedes this clerical error and agrees that this case should be remanded to Commerce for correction of such error.

B. Thrust Bearings:

NSK claims that in attempting to correct a clerical programming error in the treatment of bearings with a Y2 factor equal to zero (i.e., thrust bearings) in the preliminary determination, Commerce perpetuated another error in the final determination, which resulted in the comparison of a thrust bearing sold by NSK in the United States with a dissimilar product sold in the home market.

In the Final Results, Commerce compared U.S. thrust bearingmodels with home market thrust bearing models. When there were no sales of thrust bearing models in the home market, Commerce looked for “similar” home market tapered roller bearing (“TRB”) models. Defendant’s Memorandum in Partial Opposition to Plaintiffs Motion for Judgment on the Agency Record (“Defendant’s Memorandum”) at 6-7.

On several occasions, using its five factor model match methodology, Commerce determined that a U.S. TRB model with a Y2 factor equal to zero was “similar” and, therefore, comparable with a home market TRB [989]*989model with a Y2 factor equal to 12. Id. at 7. The fact that the value of the Y2 factor was not identical for both models did not render them dissimilar. In determining “such or similar” merchandise, Commerce examined five criteria including (1) inside diameter, (2) outside diameter, (3) width, (4) dynamic load rating, and (5) the Y2 factor. Id. at 6. In focusing upon the Y2 factor, NSK ignores the importance of the other four factors used in selecting “similar” merchandise. After evaluating all of the criteria used to select similar merchandise in this case, this Court deems Commerce’s selection as reasonable. Therefore, no clerical error occurred in the comparison with thrust bearings and this issue is hereby affirmed.

C. Adjustments for Differences in Merchandise:

NSK claims that a third clerical error occurred in Commerce’s calculation of adjustments for differences in the physical characteristics of merchandise sold in the U.S. and the Japanese market. Pursuant to Commerce’s orders, NSK reported cost of production information by quarter under the variable “difmer.” Commerce utilized this information in adjusting for differences in merchandise, and calculated an average value for difmer to insure that merchandise with differences in physical characteristics representing more than twenty percent of the cost of production would not be identified as similar merchandise. NSK claims, however, that Commerce erroneously excluded certain difmer data calculations.

Commerce concedes that in making such adjustments it failed to search for difmer data submitted for the preceding quarter. Defendant’s Memorandum at 8. Thus, this case should be remanded back to Commerce so that it can search for, and then average, difmer data reported for the quarter during which a particular TRB model was sold and for the preceding quarter if it finds none in the same quarter as that in which the sale occurred.

2. Cost of Production Data:

NSK further claims that Commerce improperly disregarded cost of production data submitted by NSK, failed to compare this data to relevant home market sales, and as a consequence excluded certain home market sales transactions from its calculation of foreign market value.

Commerce states that given the significant volume of home market sales involved in this review, which covered several respondents, Commerce first examined the sales to determine whether it was appropriate to average the respondents’ home market sales in accordance with 19 U.S.C. § 1677f-1 (1988 & Supp. 1993).

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NSK Ltd. v. United States, 17 Ct. Int'l Trade 987 (cit 1993).

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