Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committe v. United States, 2014 CIT 55

Background

Hilltop International obtained separate-rate treatment in multiple administrative reviews of the antidumping order on warmwater shrimp from the PRC based on corporate-structure certifications signed by its general manager/part-owner, To Kam Keung (Mr. To).
During the sixth administrative review, Commerce discovered undisclosed affiliation: Mr. To had incorporated, invested in, and served on the board of Ocean King (Cambodia), contrary to Hilltop's repeated certifications denying any such affiliation.
Hilltop repeatedly denied Commerce's inquiries about Ocean King and only admitted the affiliation after Commerce placed public registration documents on the record; Hilltop gave no persuasive explanation and refused follow-up questions about other possible undisclosed affiliates.
Commerce determined Hilltop's misrepresentations rendered its prior corporate-structure submissions unreliable, revoked Hilltop's separate-rate status, and assigned the 112.81% PRC‑wide rate (derived from the petition/LTFV investigation) as an adverse result; that decision was applied retroactively to the (revisited) fourth and fifth reviews after Commerce reopened their records.
The Court previously sustained Commerce’s similar determination in the fifth review but remanded to reexamine corroboration of the 112.81% PRC‑wide rate because underlying LTFV margins had been altered by subsequent litigation; Commerce recalculated and used CONNUM-specific margins for the largest cooperating exporter (Red Garden) to corroborate the petition rate.
The present opinion affirms Commerce’s decision to (1) discredit Hilltop’s certifications and treat Hilltop as part of the PRC‑wide entity in the fourth and fifth reviews, and (2) sustain Commerce’s corroboration of the 112.81% PRC‑wide rate using Red Garden’s revised CONNUM-specific margins.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
1) Whether Commerce properly disregarded Hilltop's corporate-structure representations and assigned the PRC‑wide rate	Hilltop: nondisclosure of Ocean King was immaterial/tangential and did not undermine whole submissions	Commerce/US: repeated false denials by the certifying official impeached credibility of all certified statements, permitting reliance on facts available and denial of separate rate	Held: Commerce reasonably discredited Hilltop’s representations and assigned the PRC‑wide rate; substantial evidence supports treating the misrepresentation as core, not merely tangential
2) Whether Hilltop’s failure to disclose Ocean King required a finding of direct involvement in production or transshipment to justify adverse treatment	Hilltop: absence of evidence that Ocean King produced or sold subject merchandise during POR makes nondisclosure immaterial	Commerce: need not prove transshipment; deliberate concealment (and refusal to answer follow-ups) and certified falsehoods permitted inference that record reliability was compromised	Held: Commerce need not show Ocean King’s direct involvement; misrepresentations and refusal to cooperate justified discrediting Hilltop’s submissions
3) Whether Commerce unreasonably corroborated the petition-based PRC‑wide rate by relying solely on Red Garden’s CONNUM-specific margins	Hilltop: Commerce cherry‑picked favorable CONNUMs and should have compared multiple respondents’ pricing behavior	Commerce/US: using Red Garden (largest cooperating exporter by volume, producing under same FOPs) and its CONNUM margins is a well‑established, reasonable method to assess probative value	Held: Commerce reasonably relied on Red Garden’s CONNUM margins; CONNUM‑level analysis is not improper cherry‑picking and supports probative value of the petition rate
4) Whether data from the original LTFV investigation (adjusted after litigation) are too stale to corroborate the PRC‑wide rate in later reviews	Hilltop: reliance on LTFV-era data ignores changed circumstances and later lower margins for cooperating firms	Commerce: precedent supports presumption that an unrebutted prior reliable rate remains probative; recalculated CONNUM margins reflect litigation adjustments and remain relevant	Held: Commerce reasonably concluded the petition-based rate, recalculated and corroborated with Red Garden’s contemporaneous POI data, retained probative value absent rebuttal

Key Cases Cited

Transcom, Inc. v. United States, 294 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir.) (practice of presuming government control in NME and requiring separate-rate demonstration)
F.lli De Cecco Di Filippo Fara S. Martino, S.p.A. v. United States, 216 F.3d 1027 (Fed. Cir.) (limits on using petition rates when investigation shows petition rate is not credible)
Gallant Ocean (Thailand) Co. v. United States, 602 F.3d 1319 (Fed. Cir.) (petition rate cannot be used when investigation yields much lower margins for similarly situated respondents)
KYD, Inc. v. United States, 607 F.3d 760 (Fed. Cir.) (prior dumping margins may be presumed probative absent rebuttal when exporter fails to cooperate in later reviews)
Ta Chen Stainless Steel Pipe, Inc. v. United States, 298 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir.) (Commerce may presume highest prior margin reflects current margins when respondent fails to provide recent data)
Daewoo Elecs. Co. v. United States, 6 F.3d 1511 (Fed. Cir.) (standard for reviewing Commerce findings and reasonable inferences from the record)
SKF USA, Inc. v. United States, 537 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir.) (definition of substantial evidence standard)
Nippon Steel Corp. v. United States, 458 F.3d 1345 (Fed. Cir.) (standard translating substantial evidence to "is the determination unreasonable?")
Rhone Poulenc, Inc. v. United States, 899 F.2d 1185 (Fed. Cir.) (common‑sense inference that highest prior margin is most probative absent contrary information)
Peer Bearing Co. Changshan v. United States, 587 F. Supp. 2d 1319 (Ct. Int’l Trade) (PRC‑wide rate need not be corroborated for each individual respondent when that respondent failed to obtain separate rate)