US Says Indian Surrogate Data Publicly Available in Mattress AD Review Case
The standard for whether a surrogate financial statement is considered publicly available so it can be used in an antidumping duty proceeding says that "interested parties may independently access the information," the government said in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Ashley Furniture Industries v. United States, CIT # 21-00283).
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Furniture exporter Ashley Furniture Industries claimed that statements from Indian mattress maker Emirates Sleep were not publicly available from the Indian government's Ministry of Corporate Affairs website since an "Income Tax PAN" is required to download the statements. The U.S. said that an Income Tax PAN is only required for business users of the MCA's website but is not required for registered users. The government said that since members of the public can get the information for a small fee and without a PAN and since Commerce has previously found the MCA website to be sufficient for public availability, use of the statements can stand.
CIT remanded Commerce's final results in the 2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on mattresses from Vietnam in February, sending back Commerce's use of Emirates' financial statements (see 2302240055). Judge Timothy Reif said Commerce failed to address whether the version of the statements that was available in the subscription database -- the only source of the statements -- was complete, and that the agency did not address evidence showing Ashley wasn't able to confirm the availability of the statements from a public source that could be verified on the record.