Background
The case arose from the Commerce Department’s 2022–23 administrative review of the antidumping duty order covering glycine from India. Commerce selected Kumar Industries and Avid Organics Private Limited for individual examination, while Bajaj Healthcare Limited remained a non-selected respondent.
After issuing several supplemental questionnaires, Commerce found that Kumar had not adequately answered questions about its possible affiliations with four companies and members of the Borad family. Commerce therefore applied total adverse facts available to Kumar. It assigned Bajaj a 28.59% rate based on the simple average of Kumar’s adverse-facts rate and Avid’s zero-percent margin. Kumar and Bajaj challenged those determinations.
The Court’s Holding
The Court sustained Commerce’s application of total adverse facts available to Kumar. Substantial evidence showed that Kumar submitted contradictory information and gave non-responsive answers about its affiliations, even after Commerce repeatedly identified deficiencies and provided opportunities to explain or correct them. Because affiliation can affect the calculation of normal value and the dumping margin, Commerce reasonably found that necessary information was missing and that Kumar had failed to cooperate to the best of its ability.
The Court remanded Bajaj’s all-others rate. Commerce departed from the expected method—generally a weighted average of the mandatory respondents’ rates—and instead used a simple average. But Commerce did not explain in its final decision why the expected method was infeasible or would not reasonably reflect the potential dumping margins of non-selected respondents. Post-hoc explanations offered during litigation could not cure that omission.
Key Takeaways
- Commerce may use adverse facts when a respondent repeatedly fails to resolve material contradictions concerning corporate affiliations.
- Three supplemental questionnaires gave Kumar sufficient notice of the deficiencies and opportunities to remedy or explain them.
- When Commerce departs from the expected method for calculating a non-selected respondent’s rate, the agency must justify that departure in its determination with substantial evidence.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates that incomplete or evasive affiliation disclosures can undermine an entire antidumping submission and support total adverse facts available. Respondents must provide complete, internally consistent answers rather than merely referring Commerce to earlier responses.
At the same time, a cooperating non-selected respondent’s rate cannot rest on an unexplained methodology. Commerce must articulate why its chosen alternative reasonably reflects non-selected companies’ potential dumping margins, particularly when the calculation incorporates another respondent’s adverse-facts rate.