Opinion ID: 2756241
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Final Results

Text: In 2011, Commerce assigned Huafeng a dumping margin of 41.75% using 2009 import data from the Phillippines (“surrogate values”), a market economy, to value the relevant wood inputs (“Final Results”). Commerce explained that the surrogate values represented the “best available information” under 19 U.S.C. § 1677b(c)(1) (2012) because they were contemporaneous with the Period of Review, and the market economy purchases identified by Huafeng were not. Commerce found that 19 C.F.R. § 351.408(c)(1) (2014) and the Antidumping Methodologies: Market Economy Inputs, Expected Non-Market Economy Wages, Duty Drawback; and Request for Comments, 71 Fed. Reg. 61716, 61717–18 (Oct. 19, 2006), do not mandate that Commerce only use market economy purchases when valuing inputs, as importer Home Meridian International, Inc., Great Rich (HK) Enterprises Co., Ltd., Dongguan Liaobushangdun Huada Furniture Factory (collectively, “Home Meridian”), and Huafeng suggested. Commerce explained that, although § 351.408(c)(1) provides that Commerce “normally will use the price paid to the market economy supplier” when such data is available, the “word ‘normally’ provides [Commerce] with the discretion to not use those prices if Commerce believes they do not constitute the best available information for valuing an input.” 4 HOME MERIDIAN INTERNATIONAL v. US Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 1000910–11. Commerce clarified that, although the Antidumping Methodologies create a rebuttable presumption in favor of using market economy purchases, the presumption only applies when a specified volume of those purchases are made during the period of review. Because Huafeng made no such purchases during the Period of Review, Commerce concluded that the presumption did not apply. The Court of International Trade remanded the matter to Commerce, finding that Commerce categorically excluded the market economy purchases on the basis of contemporaneity, and failed to make any factual determination on their reliability as indicators of normal value. The court acknowledged that Commerce has long favored contemporaneous surrogate values over non- contemporaneous market economy purchases to value inputs, which the court perceived to be a “blanket rule” Commerce relied on in practice “to the exclusion of all other factors.” J.A. 50. The court, however, questioned whether this “blanket rule” was in accordance with the law where, as Huafeng and Home Meridian suggested was the case, the non-contemporaneous purchases constituted 100% of the inputs used to produce the merchandise manufactured and exported during the Period of Review.