Italy Pasta: Commerce Preliminarily Finds Delverde Not Equal to Del Verde

The Commerce Department tentatively rejected a bid by Delverde Industrie Alimentari to get exempted from antidumping duties on pasta from Italy (A-475-818), finding in the preliminary results of a changed circumstances review that the company is not the successor to the now defunct Del Verde S.p.A. The former Del Verde, which went bankrupt in 2005, wasn’t subject to the AD duty order because it wasn’t found to have dumped pasta during Commerce’s original investigation (companies that get zero percent investigation rates are permanently exempted from duties). Delverde, which currently gets a 13.09% AD duty rate, said it should get the same treatment because it is the successor to the old company. But Commerce found that changes to the company’s ownership and production activities during the restructuring and asset sale to an Argentine firm mean the new Delverde is much different company, and isn’t eligible for the old Del Verde’s rate.