Trade Court Sends Back Phosphate Fertilizer Injury Analysis Based on Invalid Underselling Theory

The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 19 opinion remanded the International Trade Commission's affirmative injury finding in the countervailing duty investigations on phosphate fertilizers from Morocco and Russia. Judge Stephen Vaden said the commission did not properly support its "central" conclusion that the imports depressed prices because their significant volumes "created oversupply conditions in a declining market and low prices." Noting this finding "undergirds" the remaining statutory considerations -- volume, price effects and impact -- Vaden remanded the undersupply analysis with special instructions to also reconsider the volume, price and impact analyses should the commission stick with its initial conclusion.