CIT Remands Belgian Citric Acid AD Review for Further Explanation of Costs Calculation
Court of International Trade Judge M. Miller Baker remanded Aug. 22 the Commerce Department’s decision to combine Belgian citric acid review respondent Citribel’s quarterly raw material costs with its annualized conversion costs.
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He said the department failed to properly rebut Citribel’s arguments in favor of an entirely quarterly costs calculation in an antidumping duty administrative review.
Citribel initially reported all its costs on a quarterly basis, Baker observed. When Commerce asked the company to resubmit its conversion costs as annualized, the exporter complied -- though it advocated for the department to stick to the quarterly versions, saying its conversion costs had varied much more drastically throughout the review period than usual. For example, Baker said, Citribel’s natural gas costs rose by 50% during the review; natural gas was “one of the three most significant inputs for citric acid production,” he said, citing the exporter.
Baker said that the exporter’s invocation of Loper Bright was unavailing, explaining that the 1930 Tariff Act leaves the time periods over which an exporter’s production costs must averaged up to the department’s discretion.
Citribel also erred in describing the department’s practice as an “assumption” and in characterizing Commerce’s request for its annualized costs as having “blindsided” it, Baker determined.
But he said that “[t]he problem for the government is that the company put on considerable evidence and argued at length why annualization of its conversion costs on these facts ‘leads to a distortive or unreasonable result in the cost test and/or margin analysis,’” to which Commerce responded with “a single conclusory sentence: ‘Citribel’s argument fails to show that the standard methodology was “unreasonable” and failed to provide such record evidence.’”
He noted that Commerce’s ultimate purpose in such reviews is to draw a “fair” comparison between a product’s value and its U.S. price. The department needed a better response, he held.
(Citribel v. United States, Slip Op. No. 25-110, CIT # 24-00010, dated 8/22/25; Judge: M. Miller Baker; Attorneys: Daniel J. Cannistra of Crowell & Moring for plaintiff Citribel; Brian M. Boyton for defendant U.S. government; Stephen P. Vaugn of King & Spalding for defendant-intervenors led by Archer Daniels Midland)