US Lemon Juice Co. Fights de Minimis Rate for Brazilian Exporter at CIT
The Commerce Department illegally reversed its initial decision that lemon juice exporter Louis Dreyfus Co. was not affiliated with its primary fresh lemon supplier on the grounds that the company had no close supplier relationship with the lemon grower, U.S. company Ventura Coastal argued in a Feb. 16 complaint at the Court of International Trade. In the complaint, Ventura also railed against Commerce's decision to exclude certain administrative expenses pertaining to services provided by Louis Dreyfus' parent company or affiliated holding companies from the exporter's general and administrative expense rate calculation (Ventura Coastal v. United States, CIT # 23-00009).
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The case concerns the antidumping duty investigation on lemon juice from Brazil in which Louis Dreyfus and Citrus Juice Eireli served as the two mandatory respondents. In the investigation's preliminary determination, Commerce set a 21.49% dumping rate for Citrus Juice, a 4.45% rate for Louis Dreyfus and a 12.97% rate for the non-individually examined respondents.
In the investigation's final determination, though, Commerce reversed its initial decision over Louis Dreyfus' affiliation with its main fresh lemon supplier "on the basis that no close supplier relationship existed between the two entities," Ventura said. The result was a de minimis rate for the exporter. The company believes this decision to be illegal, telling the trade court that the "non-affiliation determination regarding LDC and its primary fresh lemon supplier, based on the lack of a close supplier relationship between the two entities, was unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise not in accordance with law."
Ventura added that while Commerce calculated Louis Dreyfus' general and administrative expense rate using the company's FY 2020 financial statements since the 2021 statements were not on the record until verification, the agency calculated the material price adjustment using the exporter's 2021 financial statement. Ventura said this led Commerce to exclude certain expenses pertaining to services provided by Louis Dreyfus' parent company. The plaintiff said the agency violated the law by using the 2021 financial statement to calculate the fruit material price adjustment based on the cost adjustment for procuring only lemons and by excluding certain administrative expenses associated with services provided by the exporter's parent company.