Commerce Correctly Used AFA Against Uncooperative Honey Exporter, Intervenors Argue

The Commerce Department correctly applied adverse facts available to Brazilian honey producer Supermel during an antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from Brazil, defendant-intervenors the American Honey Producers Association and the Sioux Honey Association argued in a March 3 response brief at the Court of International Trade. Supermel's December motion for judgment should be tossed because the exporter failed to cooperate in the investigation and was correctly hit with AFA, the intervenors argued (Apiario Diamente Comercial Exportadora v. United States, CIT # 22-00185).

The intervenors asked the court to sustain Commerce's final determination in its entirety, specifically asking that it sustain both Commerce's application of total AFA in its dumping margin calculation and its finding that the beekeepers, rather than Supermel, were the producers of the subject honey.

Supermel had argued in its December motion for judgment that the use of AFA against it based on data submitted by unaffiliated beekeepers was illegal (see 2212140005). The intervenors said that the use of AFA was justified because Supermel "failed to submit complete information ... failed to reconcile its reported honey purchase data with its accounting records ... and failed to verify its reported costs." The company's repeated failures supported Commerce's decision to treat it as uncooperative and use AFA, the intervenors said.

Supermel's argument that Commerce incorrectly treated the beekeeper suppliers as honey producers also should be discarded because Supermel never raised this issue in its case brief and did not exhaust its administrative remedies, the intervenors said. In addition, a cost of production calculation was ultimately unnecessary because Commerce correctly used AFA to determine a margin. "Commerce's treatment of Supermel as the producer would not change Commerce's ultimate determination that Supermel failed to verify its own costs," the intervenors argued.