Printing Plate Exporter Says ITC Ignored Data Trends in Finding Injury
The International Trade Commission "largely ignored" data trends in finding there to be significant price effects and an adverse impact caused by shipments of aluminum lithographic printing plates from China and Japan, exporter Fujifilm Corp. argued in a Jan. 15 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The company also challenged the commission's decision to include its affiliate, Fujifilm-Greenwood, in the domestic industry and finding of significant adverse volume effects (Fujifilm North America Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00251).
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Fujifilm said the ITC has an obligation under the statute to analyze the "impact on the current domestic industry in light of unique conditions of competition." In the underlying investigation, the record showed that Fujifilm decided to close Fujifilm-Greenwood prior to the investigation period. The affiliate "had ceased all production before the last 24 months of the investigation period," but it was still included in the domestic industry by the ITC.
The complaint said that such a move amounted to an "unlawful interpretation of the statute."
Regarding the commission's finding of significant adverse volume effects, Fujifilm said the ITC "largely ignored substantial evidence that provided important context as to why the increase in ALP imports from Japan could not be considered significant in any economically meaningful sense." The evidence included the fact that "virtually all of the increase was Fujifilm simply replacing volume that Fujifilm-Greenwood had previously supplied and substantial evidence that ALP customers chose suppliers for reasons other than the ALP product price."
On the commission's conclusion of significant price effects, Fujifilm emphasized that the statute says the focus is on the effect of the imports on domestic prices and not domestic prices in isolation.
The exporter said the ITC ignored this mandate and otherwise failed to support its conclusion with substantial evidence. The ITC "largely ignored the fact that domestic industry prices increased over the full period" and the fact that, "whatever underselling existed, there was little evidence that domestic prices were actually adversely [affected] by this underselling," the complaint said.
Lastly, Fujifilm challenged the ITC's conclusion of a significant and adverse impact caused by the imports, noting that the statute tells the commission to find whether a domestic industry "is materially injured" or "is threatened with material injury." The use of the "present tense" in the statute makes clear that the ITC's finding "must be about the present situation of the industry and not the past," the brief said.
The ITC didn't comply with this directive, ignoring the fact that the sole U.S. producer, Kodak, "had increasing profitability over the investigation period." The commission also ignored the fact that there was "no correlation between trends in subject imports and domestic industry profitability" and the "effect of non-subject imports," the brief said.