ITC Defends Use of Critical Circumstances in Vietnamese Honey Case

The International Trade Commission correctly used critical circumstances in its investigation of raw honey from Vietnam, the ITC said in its March 10 response brief at the Court of International Trade. The commission asked the court to affirm its determination and to deny a December motion for judgment by the four plaintiffs, Honey Solutions, Sunland Trading, Export Packers Co. and Sweet Harvest Foods (Sweet Harvest Foods, et al. v. United States, CIT # 22-00188).

During its investigation, the ITC found that the timing and volume of imports showed an intent both to evade the provisional antidumping measures and to assure entry of the imports prior to the date on which any retroactive measures would be applied, the commission said.

The ITC said it followed the specific requirements of the statute and considered both the “timing and volume” of imports of raw honey subject to Commerce’s critical circumstances finding. Inventories of raw honey from Vietnam nearly tripled in the post-petition period and were not explained by consumption patterns, the ITC said, which led it to conclude that the relief provided by the antidumping duty order was likely to be undermined by the large volumes that were already in U.S. inventories and underselling the domestic product.

The plaintiffs' argument that the commission should have collected additional data and tracked the inventories after the period of investigation should be rejected by the court because the plaintiffs never asked for similar data collection during the comment period of the investigation or in their response to questionnaires, and did not exhaust their administrative remedies, the ITC argued.

The complaints argued that the Vietnamese import volume had not jumped enough to undermine the remedial effect of the antidumping order so the ITC's decision to use critical circumstances was unwarranted, arguing that the increase in imports that the ITC observed in the comparison period "was consistent with normal seasonal patterns" (see 2208040065). The four cases were consolidated in September (see 2209070024).