Anti-dumping duty requires verified actual cost data; unreliable exporter records cannot justify a separate lower margin.

Anti-dumping proceedings require normal value and any separate dumping margin to rest on reliable, actual and properly verified cost data reflecting the exporter's true production and sale costs. Where the records furnished are defective, relate to a different accounting period, are not based on actual data, and are supported by an inadequate verification exercise, the questionnaire response cannot justify a lower separate duty. In such circumstances, the exporter may be treated as non-cooperating for duty determination and subjected to the same anti-dumping duty as other exporters from China. The differentiated duty was therefore unjustified, and the notification required amendment to apply the uniform higher duty.

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Issues: Whether the designated authority was justified in treating the Chinese producer as a cooperating exporter and fixing a lower anti-dumping duty on the basis of its questionnaire response and verification exercise, or whether it ought to have been treated as a non-cooperating exporter and subjected to the same duty as other exporters from China.

Analysis: The determination of normal value in anti-dumping proceedings must rest on reliable, actual and properly verified cost data that reasonably reflect the exporter's production and sale costs. The records furnished by the third respondent were found defective because they related to a different accounting period, were not based on actual data, and were supported by an inadequate verification exercise. In such circumstances, the questionnaire response could not be accepted for fixing a separate lower duty, and the exporter ought to have been treated as non-cooperating for the purpose of determining the duty applicable to Chinese exporters.

Conclusion: The separate lower duty fixed for the third respondent was unjustified; it was liable to be treated as a non-cooperating exporter and subjected to the same anti-dumping duty as the other exporters from China.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the differentiated duty succeeded, and the anti-dumping notification was required to be amended so that the third respondent's exports attracted the higher uniform duty applicable to other Chinese exporters.

Ratio Decidendi: In anti-dumping proceedings, a separate dumping margin cannot be sustained on the basis of unreliable, incomplete, or non-actual cost data, and an exporter who fails to furnish trustworthy information may be treated as non-cooperating for determination of normal value and duty.

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