(Science, Espacio Apícola, January 20th, 2025) The news site of Science magazine, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), published on Saturday, January 18th, that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has requested permission from the appeals court to withdraw the provisional decision for 15 years of registration of paraquat granted in 2021, to carry out new risk analyses of this total herbicide due to the recent lawsuit that the EPA received based on the fact that the herbicide would cause Parkinson's disease. Apparently the volatilization of the product will not be as fast as initially anticipated and would require more than four years.
Following the numerous lawsuits against glyphosate that Monsanto and then Bayer had to face and the emergence of target weeds resistance to this herbicide as well as to glufosinate, the growth in the use of paraquat (Syngenta) was exponential in the United States, according to the article in Science.
Paraquat is also widely used in (continue reading for about 3 minutes HERE)
(Espacio Apícola, December 20, 2024) Following the advice of the Defendants, the Petitioners and the Argentine Government regarding an error in the calculation methodology, everybody in the same line, the DOC reported last Friday, December 13, the following: "The Department of Commerce (DOC) is placing the attached information regarding Argentine interest rates on 30-day deposits pulled from the Central Bank of Argentina's website for the period of review (i.e., November 23, 2021, through May 31, 2023) on the record of the above-referenced review, in the event Commerce decides it will use such information for its calculation of inventory carrying costs"... (ACCESS doc. 4681284-01)
Throughout the investigation, until the preliminary determination and the last arguments presented in the first days of December, the Producer Price Index published by INDEC (National Institute of Statistics and Census of the Argentine Republic) would have been used, as the Petitioners themselves suggest in the last rebuttal cited above.
This PPI is not specific to beekeeping, we understand that the more close "formal" parameter may be the #0122 index involving farm productions which, on a "100" basis set in November 2015, during the Review Period expands from 667.9 points in November 2021 to 2391.4 points in May 2023. (Data taken from INDEC-Indice-Precios-Productor-series_sipm_dic2015.xls).
The new indicator added now starts from an interest rate of 34.48% for 30-day deposits on November 23, 2021 up to an interest rate of 90.83% on May 31, 2023, with intermediate fluctuations in both, the minimum and maximum (ACCESS doc. 4681284-01).
(Espacio Apícola, December 20, 2024) The Petitioners sent a note to the DOC requesting that it prepare complementary questionnaires for the MELBRAS company in order to present supporting documentation regarding 7 observed points (ACCESS doc. 4681903-01).
(Espacio Apícola, December 20, 2024) The Indocan company comes out to refute any application of a Particular Market Situation (PMS) requested by the Petitioners. They reject that the issue of adulterated honey in the Indian market has influenced the price of honey and that this was already solved by the DOC previously and there is no new argument presented by the Petitioners in this regard. Then, regarding the second point in question, they argue that the Petitioners have no evidence to claim that the Government of India (GOI) has failed to strengthen labor laws (the formality of beekeepers' work) and then the DOC should reject PMS's request (ACCESS doc. 4681843-01).
(Espacio Apícola, December 20, 2024) To the notice that the DOC made to the DakHoney company and that we mentioned last week, the latter responded by apologizing on two occasions and requesting the DOC not to apply the sanctions for Adverse Facts. As far as the comparative market is concerned, it requests that the recommendations of the other Vietnamese company Ban Me Thout (BMT) be followed (ACCESS doc. 4681163-01).
For its part, BMT focused its rebuttal on asking the DOC to compare its costs with those of India or Ukraine and not with Egypt. It maintains that Egypt does not have a cost study as solid as the other two countries and that Egypt's hyperinflation distorts prices (ACCESS doc. 4681147-01).
By their side, the Petitioners insist that the surrogate country from which to take a reference for production costs for Vietnamese companies must be Egypt and, as a curiosity, they speak of the processes of decrystallization as well as dehumidification of honey (as normal and acceptable) and show a photograph, on page 36 of the rebuttal, where a condensation dehumidification system which we meet about ten years ago can be seen and consists of an industrial-scale equipment of Marc Reynes presented at the Api-Expo in Montpellier 2009 (ACCESS doc. 4681810-01).
(Espacio Apícola, December 20, 2024) This morning Enrique Klauser (Photo), his wife and his son were dispatching the first batch of queen bees produced in their "Bella Vista beekeeping farm" to producers of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay (ROU) at the border crossing "Salto Grande International Bridge" , a door was opened after several months of work with local authorities. The "Bella Vista Beekeeping Farm" is in San Salvador, a town of Entre Ríos province, on National Route 18 just 90 km far from Concordia (ARG) and Salto (ROU). We highlight the neighbors' trust in the queen bees production of Enrique and his team. The "Bella Vista Beekeeping Farm" works with two lines of European honey bees: the classic Italian bee and a hybrid made from Buckfast and Italian bees. More information can be found thanks to the visit we made and published last year HERE in Espacio Apícola 138.
FINAL DETERMINATION POSTPONED
(Espacio Apícola, December 14th, 2024) Mr. Abdelali Elouaradia, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance of the United States Department of Commerce(DOC), notified that the four Final Determinations corresponding to the First Administrative Review of the anti-dumping actions against honey from Argentina, Brazil, India, and Vietnam are postponed for a period of 90 days acording a memorandum dated last Monday, December 9th. The final determinations, which were initially expected in November 2024 and were postponed ex officio according to current regulations and were expected on January 8th, would not be known until mid-April 2025 (ACCESS doc. 4678300-01).
(Espacio Apícola, December 14th, 2024)The rebuttal presented by the Petitioners recognizes and aligns with the call to attention made by ACA and the Argentine Government regarding what is considered an error in the final calculation of the Constructed Value of ACA's operations that led the DOC to determine a preliminary duty of 58.34%. In its document, like all interested parties, they highlight that the DOC's methodology must be related to the high inflation registered in Argentina during the Period of Review (POR). Its position suggests that all operations must be converted to Argentine pesos, those of purchase and those of sale, at the time of each operation. Then these would be indexed at the end of the year with the country's inflation rate in order to determine the profits of the companies. In this sense, they emphasize that this is important to avoid distortions. On the other hand, and given the situation of NEXCO, the Petitioners also ask that these initial values ??be converted to Argentine pesos at the time of operations, which is apparently not the way in which NEXCO would have presented the documentation (ACCESS doc. :4674852-01).
(Espacio Apícola, December 14th, 2024) The deadline to submit rebuttals on the Particular Market Situation requested for the analysis of the imported honey from India to the US will be this Monday, December 16th. For the third time Shakti Apifoods Private Limited had requested an extension but it was rejectedb (ACCESS doc. 4680041-01).
(Espacio Apícola, December 14th, 2024) After having published the result of the Inspection carried out by DOC's officials in Vietnam, the DOC now requests Daklar Honeybee Joint Stock Company to update the database based on the result of the visit. Although the DOC has the information collected during the visit, it cannot use it to support any decision until the company itself resubmits the corrected database based on what was reviewed in a timely manner. We understand that failure to do so would make it subject to, for example, sanctions for Adverse Facts Available (AFA). (ACCESS doc. 4680414-01).
Previous report HERE(Espacio Apícola, November 29, 2024) The Argentine Government appeared before the Department of Commerce, highlighting first of all the collaboration that both Argentine companies, ACA and NEXCO, have had to fully respond to the requirements of the honey dumping investigation, demonstrating their commitment to operate correctly in the US market. It then points out that the DOC's calculation methodology, in this First Review of the sanctions applied, inappropriately values the inflation suffered in Argentina and the devaluation of the Argentine Peso. In that order, the Argentine Government affirms that the DOC should correct this methodology by converting dollars and euros to Argentine Pesos according to the Sale dates (ACCESS doc. 4669210-01).
For their part, ten Argentine companies and a couple of importers filed a brief pointing out the legitimacy of ACA's claim in light of what they consider to be an error in the calculation by the DOC, but they also allege that it is illegal to extend that extreme rate of 58.34% to all other companies, saying: "These entities, collectively referred to herein as the "non-selected companies" contest the rate determined by Commerce for non-selected companies, namely, the 58.34% rate determined for Asociación De Cooperativas Argentinas Cooperative Limitada (ACA). ACA has provided argument how Commerce incorrectly calculated its rate, and the non-selected companies support those arguments. To the extent Commerce does not accept those arguments and intends to continue to apply the 58.34% rate (or a similarly extreme rate) to the non-selected companies in the Final Results, the non-selected companies argue that the 58.34% rate is unlawfully applied because it fails to reasonably reflect potential dumping margins for non-investigated companies (ACCESS doc. 4669864-01).
The presentation made by Davis & Leiman P.C., dated November 25, 2024, then continues to develop the argument that expressly refutes the legality of imposing the same tariff on all other companies not investigated. The document is preceded by a list of Authorities and represents the interests of the following companies: Argentik LLC (importer), Azul Agronegocios S.A., Compania Apícola Argentina S.A., D'Ambros María de Los Angeles and D'Ambros María Daniela SRL, Gasrroni S.R.L., Naiman S.A., Newsan S.A., Patagonik Food S.A., Prairie Imports LLC (importer), Promiel S.R.L. and Villamora S.A.
As we have noted since early July, when the Preliminary Result of this First Review was published, ACA raised a change in the analysis methodology by the DOC that altered the interpretation of the documentation submitted by ACA. This was raised by ACA in an extensive analysis and anticipated what it is requesting today: "ACA respectfully requests that the Department revise its methodology for the purposes of calculating the final results of this administrative review by: 1) converting foreign currency revenues into ARS at the time of sale, 2) inflating ARS-denominated values to the end of the period, and 3) calculating ACA's inflation-adjusted profit by calculating the difference between ACA's aggregate end-of-period sales revenue and cost (ACCESS doc. 4670917-01). This would be the central claim based on what ACA explains was an error in the programming language used by the DOC to determine the Preliminary Result of this First Administrative Review.
For its part, NEXCO S.A., which was initially determined by the DOC to have a tariff below the threshold and therefore equivalent to "zero," and anticipating them self that the systemic fail that harmed ACA could be used by the Petitioners to request the imposition of a higher tariff, asks the DOC to do the same thing that ACA is requesting, namely: The Department must correct its preliminary determination calculations by eliminating the indexing of third country sales revenues in U.S. dollars when calculating CV profit. Only the costs which are in ARS should be indexed to the end of the period. Otherwise, the CV profit rate does not reflect the proper treatment of dollar denominated prices and third market revenue based the date of the sale.
As expected, the petitioners are clinging to the interpretation made by the DOC to sanction ACA with the 58.34% tariff and reject ACA's claim because they consider that the indexaction at the end of the period, explained by the inflationary process, is a price and billing adjustment that cannot be accepted. And with respect to NEXCO, which would have reported an analysis of inventory costs in dollars, they maintain that these should be calculated in Argentine pesos with the interest rates of Argentina. They also demand a production cost report that reflects the differences in the characteristics of the honeys sold when, we understand, for NEXCO the DOC had already recognized the purchase prices as costs (ACCESS doc. 4671208-01).
Next Wednesday, December 4 is the deadline for the interested parties to refute the allegations presented this week.
(Espacio Apícola, November 29th, 2024) The Petitioners presented documentation requesting and supporting the petition to consider Particular Market Situations in the primary production of honey in India. One of the issues raised, but not the only one, is to claim that the Indian government failed to defend workers in the primary sector where 90% of the workforce (they say) would be informal workers. A second argument focuses on the fact that another Particular Market Situation would have been caused by the fall in the price of honey in India due to adulteration with sugar syrups from China. They contrasted this issue with the alleged production costs published in the Indian press and by the government. If there were no massive fraud, honey prices would be different, the petitioners claim, "the Department should increase respondents' reported material costs by [ ] percent to remedy the distortion in Indian honey prices caused by widespread honey adulteration with sugar syrups (ACCESS doc. 4670670-01)."
(Espacio Apícola, November 29th, 2024) Finally, the DOC published, on November 27th, the reports of the verifications carried out in the offices of the two companies investigated in Vietnam and extended until next Thursday, December 5th, the deadline for the allegations and December 12th for the rebuttals (ACCESS doc. 4671673-01).
Previous report HERE(Espacio Apícola, November 16th, 2024) On November 5th, Thomas Martin uploaded the report about the "Verification of Sales and Costs" carried out by him and his partner at the offices of the Association of Argentine Cooperatives (ACA) last September to the Department of Commerce (DOC) website (ACCESS doc 4659051-01); three days later, Zachary Saykin did the same with the report about the verification carried out at NEXCO S.A. (ACCESS doc 4662563-01). These reports, 28 and 32 pages long respectively, did not make or suggest any changes to the preliminary resolution, they only intervened to verify the information previously presented by each company. After that each company presented documents with "minimal corrections".
All the basic documentation was then consolidated for the analysis and Final Determination of the first review carried out by the DOC after the initial investigation and open to the defendants' arguments and possible refutations from the Petitioners, before the DOC confirms or modifies the Preliminary Determination published on June 28th, five months ago! which is an eternity for the beekeeping market in Argentina.
NEXCO S.A., whose honeys were excluded from all tariffs in a preliminary manner, now has the opportunity to strengthen its defense until November 22nd and the Petitioners to request a higher tariff.
For its side, ACA, whose honeys were preliminarily sanctioned with a dutty of 58.34% for the period of the first review and which in August had argued a methodological change by the DOC that would harmed it, they presented on yesterday the same information opportunely presented and verified by DOC officials with the corrections made, in two calculation versions (ACCESS 4665359-01). The first according to the weighted average standard of annualized costs used by the DOC (which would have been the analysis method used in the review by the DOC and questioned by ACA). And the second version uses the quarterly cost methodology also used by the DOC and which is the method used by the DOC for the calculation in the initial investigation. ACA had pointed out this change of method between the initial investigation and the investigation of the review period as the cause of what they consider an error in the dutty calculation by the DOC, as we said in this column on August 30th. The ACA proposal is for the DOC to review the correct calculation method to apply based on the Argentine inflationary process that prevailed during the Review Period (a quarterly or annualized analysis) and, based on this, confirm or modify the tariff determined in a preliminary manner.
Next Friday, November 22nd, is the deadline for ACA, NEXCO and the Petitioners to appeal on the preliminary results published in June and on November 29th for the respective refutations (ACCESS doc 4665558-01).
Beyond the modification or not of the tariff exemption for NEXCO honey, the ACA battle will define the definitive tariff for honey from all other Argentine exporting companies and for which all beekeeping activity in Argentina is hopeful and pending in the middle of the productive season in the southern country.
(Espacio Apícola, November 16th, 2024) No documents have been submitted regarding the First Review and the Second Review is moving forward in its usual channels.
Apparently the tariffs determined in a preliminary manner would be confirmed in January.
(Espacio Apícola, November 16th, 2024) The progress of the Second Review continues with questions from the Petitioners regarding the documentation presented by the companies, without further developments.
Apparently the tariffs determined in a preliminary manner would be confirmed in January.
(Espacio Apícola, November 16th, 2024) The companies whose documentation would have been verified by the DOC in the visits made last month presented their respective corrections and comments. The DOC is expected to submit reports on these verifications as well as a schedule of final appeals and rebuttals prior to the final determination to be published on January 8th.
The Second Review is also underway.
(Espacio Apícola, November 7th, 2024) Several samples of Chinese products, offered as Chinese honey or Vietnamese honey, were taken at the recent SIAL Paris fair by Estonian beekeepers and analysed by Metagenomics DNA Analisis where they proved to be absolutely fake.
Peeter Matson, Sander Sulane and Taavi Tull, professional beekeepers from Estonia recorded an investigation they carried out at the recent SIAL Paris fair, entitled "The truth behind honey in the global market". They travelled to Paris, visited the stands of Chinese companies offering "honey" and on their return took the product samples to the CELVIA laboratory in Estonia, where they were subjected to the most innovative analysis of authenticity developed there by Kairi Raime, the Metagenomic DNA Analysis (MDA) in honey which we have already referred here.
The conversations with the Chinese sellers, recorded by the beekeepers... (Continue 2 minutes lecture HERE and the link to the video)
(Espacio Apícola, October 24th, 2024) As of November 28th, 2024, all honey exports to the European Union must include the identification of the establishment of origin and it must be duly registered in the list in accordance with article 127, section 3 "e", paragraphs ii and iii of Regulation 2017/625 of the EU, as indicated in the last Delegated Regulation signed on September 15th, 2023.
The information can be consulted on the EuLex site or in the specific summary for bee products that we published in Espacio Apícola 143, in Spanish last May.
ADULTERATION IN FOCUS
The main motivation for this measure is to control the quality of honey exported to the EU or substitutes that are sold as "honey" in a clearly fraudulent manner. The actions of the European Commission were reinforced last year through a report by the European Farmers' Organisation (COPA) and the European Agricultural Cooperatives (COGECA); this organisation, COPA-COGECA, published last year on March 23rd a report...(continue 3 minutes lecture HERE).
(Espacio Apícola, October 18th, 2024) The second review of the anti-dumping actions against Argentine honey in the United States has finally begun. Based on the complexity of the analysis and the visits for verification carried out by DOC officials over 15 days among the commercial offices of the investigated companies during July, NEXCO and ACA were the last companies to receive the questionnaires for this new investigation period between June 1st, 2023 and May 31st, 2024.
This review will be a new challenge for all the stakeholders as it includes the extreme of two extreme models of administration in Argentina: one of Sergio Massa at the head of the Ministry of Economy of the Kirchnerist government and the beginning of the current Luis Caputo, this time, under the mandate of the libertarian Javier Milei.
According to the publication of the preliminary results in the United States Federal Register on July 8th, the Final Determination and its respective analysis should be published on November 12th, considering the 7-day delay caused by a computer service failure suffered by the DOC.
Although some Argentine stakeholders presume that this deadline will be extended until January 7th, as already announced by the DOC for the Final Determination in the Vietnamese case, there was not any notification to the other three ( Argentina, Brazil or India).
(Espacio Apícola, October 18th, 2024) Since Apis Nativa was removed from the investigation with the approval of all parties, the DOC chose the third largest honey exporter from Brazil, MINAMEL.
MINAMEL, the first Brazilian company to export honey to the United States at the time of its founder Mr. Agenor Castagna (see the analysis of honey exports from Brazil to the United States in Espacio Apícola 140 - Aug. 2023), requested to be questioned by the DOC after its purchase of Apiarios Diamante, the company that was initially sanctioned for Adverse Facts Available (AFA). At that time, the DOC rejected MINAMEL's request, then the Court of International Trade exonerated Apiarios Diamante, paving the way for the merger that now, having been called for investigation, has the opportunity to clarify the situation of the entire honey export operation from Brazil.
(Espacio Apícola, October 18th, 2024) After the Petitioners' criticisms and the Indian companies' joint responses, there was no news from the DOC and the Final Determination of the first review is awaited. The two Indian companies selected for this new review, Indocan and Shakti, are engaged in answering the questionnaires.
(Espacio Apícola, October 18, 2024) Following the significant reduction in tariffs promoted by US senators and representatives and finally imposed on Vietnamese honey during the initial investigation, the First Review doubled those values, which occurred within the framework of Vietnam's ratification as a non-market economy, with its significant implications for anti-dumping investigations.
Despite the second review being underway for Vietnamese honey, the DOC has arranged to visit the investigated companies to carry out a verification of the sales declared in the responses to the questionnaires and other needs that arise.
The first company to be visited will be Daklak HoneyBee Joint Stock Company (DakHoney) at its headquarters in the city of Buon Ma Thout, in the province of Dak Lak, Vietnam, from October 22nd to 25th. The other company under investigation, Ban Me Thuot Honeybee Joint Stock Company (BMT), will be audited for similar purposes between October 29th and November 1st. Because of this, the DOC had already anticipated that it could not meet the November 12th deadline for the publication of the Final Determination and is postponing said determination, in the case of Vietnam, until January 7th, 2025. (ACCESS doc. 4647178-01)
(Espacio Apícola, October 3rd, 2024) The Department of Commerce was published the "draft" instructions for U.S. customs to implement the deposit of duties by companies that import honey from Argentina of the instructions as of the publication of the Final Determination of the First Administrative Review in the Federal Register. This First Review Final Determination corresponding to the interval 11/23/2021 to 05/31/2023 is expected next month. So far, the DOC has not published any document referring to the Price and Cost Verification that it carried out in the offices of the investigated companies, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. If there are no modifications to the actions taken, the honey from NEXCO S.A. imported into the United States will not pay tariffs, while the companies who import honey from ACA and all others must deposit 58.34% of its value for the honey imported during the reference period.
(Espacio Apícola, October 3rd, 2024) Given the absence of suspended entries from certain companies during the Period of Review, among which is the one initially sanctioned and then exonerated by the Court of International Trade, Apiarios Diamante, the Department of Commerce communicated its intention to rescind this review for those companies. For its part, Apis Nativa, which in the review received a preliminary tariff of 0%, withdrew its request to participate in the second review. Likewise, the Petitioners withdrew their request for investigation of Apis Nativa for the second review in progress.
I(Espacio Apícola, October 4th, 2024) The two companies under investigation, Allied Natural Product and Indocan Honey, responded through their lawyers (International Trade Lawyers) with three consecutive documents to the latest accusations made by the Petitioners (Access doc. 4642272-01 ff.). Basically, both companies appeal to the truth and sufficiency of the information provided by them in the investigation, which is why they argue that they should not be sanctioned in whole or in part with Adverse Facts Available (AFA). Methodological aspects also come into play regarding whether prices and costs should be analyzed on a quarterly basis, as the DOC has done, or whether they should be annualized as proposed by the Petitioners. Let us remember that since the original investigation, the Petitioners have requested that the DOC conduct an on-site Verification of the Indian companies, but so far this alternative has not been considered by the DOC.
(Espacio Apícola, October 4th, 2024) The development of the Second Review is progressing with formal interventions and the common requests for postponement of dates for the submission of responses to the questionnaires sent by the DOC.
Previous week HERE(Espacio Apícola - October 3rd, 2024) European professional beekeepers, alarmed by the lack of sales, the presence of a large amount of honey at very low prices in certain supermarket chains and the publication of the European Union last year indicating that 46% of imported honey is adulterated, they carried out their own market research and arrive at the conclusion that in the supermarkets where they bought honey to analyze, 80% of the samples were adulterated honey or directly a fake product, which emulates honey and is sold as such.
They bought 29 jars labeled as "honey" in different supermarkets in different towns in Germany and added a jar of honey purchased from a well-known beekeeper as a control sample. They took the samples to internationally recognised laboratories for testing. All the samples complied with European regulations. However, Bernhard Heuvel, president of the European Professional Beekeepers' Association (EPBA) and vice-president of the German Professional and Commercial Beekeepers' Association (DBIB), he says these adulterated or fake products are so cheap that they cannot be honey, but not only that, "when you taste (fake) honey, its texture, smell and taste are strange..(continue 3 minutes lecture HERE)
(Espacio Apícola - September 24th, 2024 - ACTUALIZADO EL 7 de octubre)"The initiative aims to advance permanent and reciprocal liberalisation of trade with Ukraine, with the aim to work towards Ukraine's integration into the single market". (CALL FOR EVIDENCE FOR AN INITIATIVE - without an impact assessment - Ref. Ares (2024) 6238483 - 03/09/2024).
Traditional Ukrainian honey exports to Russia have been sent to the United States and Europe for some years now. Since January 1st 2016, an EU-Ukraine Association Agreement establishing a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) has been provisionally in force.
In June 2022, four months after Putin's invasion of Ukraine began, when the US investigation... (continue 3 minutes lecture HERE).
(Espacio Apícola, September 13th, 2024) After we announced last week the visit of officials from the United States Department of Commerce to carry out a "Verification of prices and costs" at the offices of the Association of Argentine Cooperatives, this Monday the DOC announced the visit to NEXCO S.A. for the same purpose next week, from September 16th to 20th, (Access doc. 4627968-01).
Deliberations continued in the offices of A.C.A. as the time of this report. The thing is, what and how to index purchases, expenses, sales and how to make valuations in dollars in the midst of an inflationary process like Argentina's is not easy.
In this regard, as a preview of what will be the week of verifications that the DOC will carry out in NEXCO offices next week, Morris, Manning and Martin bureau, lawyers of the company, presented yesterday an alternative proposal to that of White and Case, lawyers of A.C.A. on August 29 (Access doc. 4623044-01). Both proposals are very interesting to analyze and there is certainly expectation for the result of these visits, since they are the first that the DOC has made to companies questioned in this investigation for dumping that has other actors in equally or more confusing scenarios such as those of India and Vietnam.
(Espacio Apícola, September 13th, 2024) Apis Nativa submitted last Friday a document requesting that the comparison of honey sales prices to the United States with a third country be used since their sales in the local market are less than 5% of what is traded with the United States. They did not make public the name of the third country proposed (Access doc. 627243-01).
(Espacio Apícola, September 13th, 2024) Indocan was supposed to respond yesterday to the criticism raised last week by the Petitioners regarding the filtering of honey, but requested that the deadline for its rebuttal be extended until Thursday, September 19th. For its part, the DOC has already selected the two Indian companies that will be selected for the second period of review. They will be named Indocan and Shakti for being the ones that sold the most volume in the period to be audited (Access doc. 4629945-01).
(Espacio Apícola, September 13th, 2024) No significant news in this investigation this week, as of the time of this report.
Previous week HERE(Espacio Apícola, September 5th, 2024) Two officials from the United States Department of Commerce, international trade compliance analysts, will travel to Buenos Aires to "verify sales and costs" of Argentine Cooperative Association (ACA) next Monday September 9th until Friday September 13th. It is emphasized that the information to be collected is only for the purposes of verification and the greatest collaboration is expressly requested to avoid the risk of a sanction for Adverse Facts Available (AFA) that would aggravate the situation of the company (ACCESS doc. 4624720-01).
In addition, due to global internet service interruptions caused by failures in the update of a security software on July 19th, the deadlines for the start, preliminary or final determinations are postponed for seven days because there is not enough time to process all the documentation that was submitted all at once and late due to the interruption (ACCESS 4624874-01).
In another order, the DOC again nominated ACA and Nexco for the next administrative review covering raw honey exports from June 1st, 2023 to May 31st, 2024. Although several Argentine companies registered for this stage, only the Petitioners suggested that ACA and Nexco be nominated and then the DOC, after analyzing the exported volumes and other aspects, confirmed this choice (ACCESS 4624681-01).
(Espacio Apícola, September 5th, 2024)
I feel a silence in my soul,
that makes me sob...
I have a void in my soul,
that I cannot fill... This is how Miltinho's song "endless sadness" begins. Following the DOC decisions in favor of Brazilian companies that we published last week, Brazil 2 vs. Petitioners 0, the petitioners withdrew their request for a hearing with the Department of Commerce. Enjoy Miltinho's song on YouTube Endless Sadness.
(Espacio Apícola, September 5th, 2024) While more than 5,000 metric tons of extra-light amber honey from India were imported into the United States between May, June and July of this year, at average prices below $2,100 per ton, the lowest import price for this category, the lawyers and financial analysts of the American Honey Producers Association (AHPA) and the Sioux Honey Association (SHA), the Petitioners, are seeing if they can catch the company onto the honey filtering that the Indocan firm would have declared in some shipments according to the 161-page response to the supplementary economic questionnaire that the Indian company submitted last month. If after so many accusations of murders and crimes Eliot Ness was able to put Al Capone in jail for tax evasion... who knows?
In response to the Petitioners' complaint last week, Indocan immediately responded by saying that it is false that a 25-micron filter removes all the pollen from honey... (ACCESS doc. 4609616-01).
Next week, the case reports can be submitted until September 12th and the respective rebuttals are due next Tuesday, September 17th (although it is most likely that some will ask for more time) (ACCESS doc. 4626120-01).
(Espacio Apícola, September 5th, 2024) The Daklak Honeybee Joint Stock Company asked the United States Department of Commerce that, if it is not chosen for the next review period, they want to be audited as a voluntary respondent (ACCESS 4624800-01).
Previous week HERE(Espacio Apícola, August 30, 2024) The Argentine Cooperative Association (ACA) finally filed yesterday its claim for what they considered an error in the calculation of antidumping duties during the period of the First Administrative Review.
ACA says: "the programming language employed in this first administrative review differs significantly from that used to calculate CV Profit in the underlying investigation. The impact of this change in programming was massive for ACA; it increased ACA's CV Profit on third country sales by a factor of more than 10 (that is, by more than 1000%) and caused the Department to assign ACA a preliminary dumping margin which was similarly overstated."
This would be due to the fact that the effects of inflation and devaluation of the Argentine peso would not have been considered according to the dates of each sale made. They also claim that the DOC did not provide timely notice of the change in method.
The Petitioners are now expected to comment, as well as an explanation from the DOC regarding the alleged methodological change, as well as a response to the calculation proposals suggested by ACA. It should be recalled that the tariffs set for ACA rose to more than 58% in the Preliminary Determination of this First Administrative Review and that, having reduced the tariff to zero for the other company under investigation (Nexco), then that tariff of 58% would remain for all other Argentine honey exporters to the United States (Access doc. 4623044-01).
(Espacio Apícola, August 30, 2024)As the rebuttal that MELBRAS opportunely filed regarding the suggestions to apply sanctions for Adverse Facts Available (AFA), the other company, APIS NATIVA, did the same.
On the other hand, in response to the claims filed by the petitioners, the Department of Commerce ratified the changes made by the Court of International Trade on June 5, by which the duties of AFA against Supermel were repealed and reduced to 10.52% for said company and those of the rest of the companies were set at 9.38%. If this is ratified in the Final Determination expected in November, the DOC will appropriately instruct the customs and border control offices (Access doc. 4620941-01).
The DOC immediately selected both companies of the ongoing investigation (MELBRAS and APIS NATIVA) for the next period of review and has already sent them the corresponding questionnaires, thus the Brazilian companies are the most advanced in this new stage (ACCESS doc. 4619980-01). Given the circumstances, the Petitioners resigned their request for a hearing to the DOC.
(Espacio Apícola, August 30, 2024)The Petitioners' rebuttal to the extensive response that INDOCAN submitted to the supplementary questionnaire on August 6 has finally arrived. They request that certain information that INDOCAN presented as confidential be made public and point out that INDOCAN claims to have filtered some honey below 25 microns and that this would remove all pollen and traceability from the honey (or even a guarantee of authenticity, ACCESS doc. 4620433-01 dated August 26, 2024). News in development.
(Espacio Apícola, August 30, 2024) Over the past two weeks, several Vietnamese companies have submitted their respective "Separate Rates Certification", that certifies the national origin of individuals or companies in order to be able to operate commercially with the United States for members of a country considered Non-Market Economy, a condition that the DOC recently ratified for Vietnam. Other companies submitted their application for this certificate.
Finally, the DOC also responded to all the Senators and Representatives that they had sent letters referring specifically to Vietnam's status as a Non-Market Economy (ACCESS 4620652-01, August 26, 2024).
(Espacio Apícola, August 17, 2024) The Department of Commerce (DOC) published a Rescission of the administrative review of part of the antidumping duty order on raw honey from Argentina, an administrative communication involving five companies that ( we understand) would not have exported raw honey to the United States during the administrative review period.
Otherwise, no documents have been published regarding the preliminary determination or about the new review period.
(Espacio Apícola, August 17, 2024) MELBRAS responded yesterday at noon to the rebuttal that the Petitioners had presented the previous week. Petitioners have requested that the Department of Commerce (DOC) should apply Adverse Fact Availables (AFA ) against the Brazilian companies for considering insufficient or incomplete responses to the investigation questionnaires.
MELBRAS claims that the DOC should not apply the AFA sanctions since it would not be in accordance with the law, they accuse the Petitioners of not correctly assessing the responses of MELBRAS and its suppliers, that they complain a lot about what they consider to be very rudimentary data from beekeepers and middlemen and that they already requested that sanctions against MELBRAS during the original investigation and before the Court of International Trade and that in both instances this request was rejected, so MELBRAS claims that the DOC should dismiss these claims and determine in the same way as the previous actions (ACCESS doc. 4616296-01).
(Espacio Apícola, August 17, 2024) After the INDOCAN extensive answer document to the last questionnaire presented on August 6, the Petitioners ask on Thursday 16 more time to present their rebuttal. The DOC granted yesterday the deadline requested by the petitioners up to August 23rd.
(Espacio Apícola, August 17, 2024) After the harsh responses that Vietnamese companies received last week, as we have described in a timely manner, the companies Ban Me Thuot and Dak Nguyen Hong reinforced their staff of lawyers involved in their defense with Jonathan Freed.
Previous week HERE