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Dole loses court
Bloomberg News
bid to avoid $2 mil
in dumping penaltiesWASHINGTON--Dole Food Co. is liable for $2 million in penalties for dumping canned pineapple below value in the United States, after the nation's highest court rejected the company's appeal today.
The Supreme Court refused to consider Dole's arguments that the Commerce Department used an invalid method to determine the cost of producing the fruit. Dole, the world's largest producer of fresh fruit, imported the pineapple into the United States from Thailand.
Dumping occurs when imported products are sold in the United States at less than their fair-market value, harming competition.
In the pineapple case, the two sides fought over the value of the fruit. The issue was how to allocate the costs of a production process that makes both fruit and pineapple juice simultaneously.
The Commerce Department relied on allocation methods used by other companies that had been under investigation.
Government officials said those systems were consistent with generally accepted accounting practices.
The company called those methods "circular" because they focused on the value of the final products. Dole contended that government officials instead should have looked at the weight or volume of the fruit and juice.
A federal appeals panel sided with the government in July. In court papers, Dole said the appeals court decision, if not reversed, would mean "approximately $2 million" in liability for the Westlake Village, Calif.-based company.
Maui Land & Pineapple Co., the only U.S. producer of canned pineapple, joined the government in urging rejection of the Dole appeal.
Kahului-based Maui Land's 1994 complaint to the Commerce Department sparked the government's investigation of Dole and three other fruit importers.
