Court Opinion

ID: 9484722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 10:06:00.677752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:25.508357
License: Public Domain

*1329NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the court’s endorsement of Commerce’s methodology. While any reasonable valuation methodology may be supported, one that is blatantly unreasonable warrants judicial alteration, not automatic affirmance. Commerce selected the Gachihata 2000/2001 pangas sales price of 68 takas per kilogram, adjusted to 98 takas for inflation, as the surrogate fair value for pangas whole fish for the period covered by the fourth administrative review, from August 1, 2006 to July 31, 2007. Not only is the 2000/2001 figure devoid of any evidentiary support as the 2006/2007 value, even by inference, but unchallenged evidence shows that it is conspicuously outside of any reasonable range of the actual value for the period of review.
Commerce selected the nation of Bangladesh, and the Bangladesh company Gachihata Aquaculture Farms, Ltd., as the surrogate for determining the fair sales value of pangas fish in Vietnam. There was no contradiction to the record that Gachihata had not sold pangas fish at 68 takas since 2001. For the third administrative review of the QVD dumping order, for the period August 1, 2005 to July 31, 2006, Commerce had used the Gachihata value of 45 takas for FY 2006/2007. Now, for the fourth administrative review, Commerce used the 2000/2001 price of 68 takas, which Commerce inflated to 98 takas. The following table, from QVD’s brief, summarizes the pangas prices in the Commerce record:
Source Whole Fish Value
2000/2001 Gachihata Annual Report 68 takas per kilogram
2001/2002 Gachihata Annual Report 50 takas per kilogram
2002/2003 Gachihata Annual Report 2003/2004 Gachihata Annual Report 49.7 takas per kilogram 48 takas per kilogram
2004 APB Study_ 55 takas per kilogram
2006/2007 Gachihata Annual Report 45 takas per kilogram
2007 FAO Study 42 takas per kilogram
2007 Price Quote from Bangladesh Catfish Co.. Ltd. 40 takas per kilogram
QVD Br. 10.
Even if Commerce were now concerned about the fidelity of the Gachihata data, for the government states that Gachihata was subject to economic difficulties, the record contains no support for selecting Gachihata’s 2000/2001 sales price to measure market value in 2007. QVD proposes that at least two other values are more reasonable than the 2000/2001 value selected by Commerce. QVD points to the value of 45 takas from the 2006/2007 financial statement of Gachihata as used by Commerce in its third administrative review; or the 2007 FAO Study (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) at 42 takas. The FAO Study, entitled “Economics of Aquaculture Feeding Practices in Selected Asian Countries,” contains a section on farming pangasms in Bangladesh that states that the farmgate price was approximately 42 takas, derived from research of sixty separate fish farms. Commerce’s belated rejection of the FAO Study is not credibly explained, for Commerce had placed it in the record and invited and received commentary from all concerned.1 QVD also points to the 2004 *1330ADB (Asian Development Bank) study reporting the price of 55 takas. Instead, Commerce not only selected the most outdated value in the record, but inflated that value by an additional 44%, despite the evidence of steady price decline since 2001.
Substantial evidence does not support 98 takas as the surrogate fair value for the fourth administrative review of imported pangas whole fish. From my colleagues’ endorsement of this inappropriate process, I respectfully dissent.

. The FAO Study was credited by Commerce in other cases. On June 22, 2009, about three months after issuance of these Final Results, Commerce relied on this FAO study in Certain Frozen Fish Fillets from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Final Results of the Third New Shipper Reviews, 74 Fed.Reg. 29,473 (June 22, 2009). Commerce extolled the quality and reliability of the FAO Study. Decision Mem. (June 15, 2009), at Cmt. 3.