American Honey Producers Defend ITC's Use of Critical Circumstances at Trade Court

The Court of International Trade should sustain the International Trade Commission's critical circumstances determination from its investigation on raw honey from Vietnam, the American Honey Producers Association and Sioux Honey Association said in an April 10 response at the Court of International Trade. The commission asked the court to deny a December motion for judgment by Sweet Harvest Foods and three other plaintiffs challenging the ITC's finding (Sweet Harvest Foods v. U.S., 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.

According to the two honey producer associations, Sweet Harvest Foods argued that it did not challenge the time period on which the ITC relied to assess the significance of the import volume increase, "even though that period was precisely the same period as the period the Commission relied upon to examine the rapid increase in import inventories."

The ITC relied on the same post-petition period that led to suspension of liquidation and imposition of provisional measures and focused on the same imports as the Commerce Department, in accordance with the statute, the honey producers said. During the period, the ITC "found both a significant increase in and high volumes of imports" and a "rapid increase in inventories," the honey producers said.

Sweet Harvest and the other plaintiffs did not challenge that there were significant increases in import volumes or inventories. Instead, they only argued that the Commission should have looked at inventory levels during a much later period, the producers said. "The approach Plaintiffs advocate is contradictory to the plain language of the statute and its purpose," they said.

The producers agreed with the ITC's argument that because the plaintiffs never asked for data collection during the comment period of the investigation and did not exhaust their administrative remedies, their arguments should be rejected (see 2303130048).