FINAL RESULTS OF REDETERMINATION

I. SUMMARY

In accordance with the U.S. Court of International Trade's order in The Torrington Co. v. United States, Consol. Court No. 96-07-01782, Slip Op. 97-105 (July 28, 1997), the Department of Commerce (the Department) has prepared these final results of redetermination on remand with respect to Antifriction Bearings (Other Than Tapered Roller Bearings) and Parts Thereof From Thailand; Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review and Revocation of Antidumping Duty Order, 61 Fed. Reg. 33711 (June 28, 1996). The Court directed the Department to determine a proper methodology for calculating profit for constructed value (CV) for NMB Thai Ltd., Pelmec Thai Ltd., NMB Hi-Tech Bearings Ltd., and NMB Corporation (collectively NMB) in the absence of cost-of-production data and where related-party sales were not made at arm's-length prices. NMB Thai Ltd., Pelmec Thai Ltd., and NMB Hi-Tech Bearings Ltd. are wholly owned subsidiaries of Minebea Co., Ltd., which is a Japanese public corporation. NMB Corporation is wholly owned by a holding company, NMB (USA) Inc., which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Minebea Co., Ltd. On September 26, 1997, we released the draft results of redetermination to interested parties for comments. On October 2, 1997, we received comments from Torrington.

II. COURT INSTRUCTIONS

We have followed the instructions of the Court by applying a profit rate based on sales to unrelated parties and to one related party which passed the arm's-length test. In doing so, we discarded all aggregate related-party profit data reported in NMB's table entitled "Thailand

Home Market Gross Profit Ratio Cost" contained within Section D of its December 9, 1994 response. This table covered sales profits made during the period May 1993 through April 1994. We used profit data on sales to unrelated parties only and added profit data for sales made to the one related customer which purchased subject merchandise at arm's-length prices. To calculate profits for sales made by NMB to this particular related customer, we used sales data from NMB's Section B home market sales listing and cost data from NMB's Section D cost-of- production response. Based on the above methodology, we calculated a combined profit rate in our margin calculation.

III. COMMENTS RECEIVED

Torrington argues that the Department made a ministerial error in the calculations which resulted in the inappropriate deletion of five sales observations. It requests that the Department make this correction for these final remand results. Torrington also notes that, when calculating profit for CV, the Department used an old version of respondent's Section D tables describing profit rates on sales to related and unrelated parties.

In response, we note that the error Torrington alleges was present in both the original preliminary and final results margin calculations; thus, the petitioner has had numerous opportunities to bring the alleged error to the Department's and the Court's notice prior to this redetermination. Therefore, we have not made this correction for these final results of redetermination. We agree with petitioner, however, that we used an old version of NMB's Section D data describing profit rates (i.e., NMB's September 23, 1994 response). Therefore, for calculating profit for CV in these final results of redetermination, we have used the appropriate version of NMB's Section D profit rate tables which NMB reported in its revised response of December 9, 1994. In addition, in reviewing our draft remand calculations, we realized that we had miscalculated the profit amount on sales to unrelated parties. The profit rate decreased as a result of making this correction.

Torrington also argues that, when calculating profit for CV, the Department included sales to a related-party customer improperly and without giving an explanation in the remand determination or supporting memorandum as to why it included these sales. Torrington contends that inclusion of these sales is improper because profits on sales to this related customer are substantially lower than profits on sales to unrelated customers. Torrington argues that, although the Department has not performed a cost investigation to exclude below-cost home market sales in this case, the higher prices observed in connection with this related customer are likely to reflect below-cost prices in the unrelated-customer comparison sales the Department used.

In response, we find that Torrington's argument that we included sales to a related party for calculating CV profit improperly and without explanation has no merit. We stated in our draft results of redetermination that sales to this one related-party customer were made at arm's-length prices; therefore, we used these sales in our profit-rate calculation. Moreover, we included sales to this one related-party customer as part of the home market database in our preliminary and final results of review and this fact was noted in our analysis memo dated November 22, 1995. Further, we note that Torrington voiced no objections to the inclusion of sales to this customer during the conduct of the administrative review. Therefore, we have not excluded sales to this one related customer for calculating a profit rate for these final remand results.

We addressed Torrington's other arguments in our brief before the Court. That is, the difference in profit on sales to the one related customer and sales to the unrelated customer is not an issue since we were unable to perform a profit-variance test due to insufficient data on the record. Also, we could not determine the likelihood of below-cost prices to unrelated customers, as Torrington claims, because there was not a below-cost investigation for this review.

IV. FINAL RESULTS OF REDETERMINATION

As a result of this redetermination, NMB's antidumping margin for the period May 1, 1993 through April 30, 1994, increased from 0.19 percent to 0.23 percent.

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Robert S. LaRussa
Assistant Secretary
for Import Administration

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Date: 10/24/97