The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Import Administration is required by law to protect business proprietary information submitted in an antidumping or countervailing duty proceeding. The Department may only disclose business proprietary information to:

•   An individual authorized by the Department to have access to business proprietary information under
    the terms of an administrative protective order (APO);

•   An employee of the Department of Commerce or the International Trade Commission directly involved
    in the proceeding in which the information is submitted;

•   An employee of the Customs Service directly involved in conducting a fraud investigation relating to an
    antidumping or countervailing duty proceeding;

•   The U.S. Trade Representative as provided by 19 U.S.C. § 3571(i);

•   Any person to whom the submitting person specifically authorizes disclosure in writing; and

•   A charged party or counsel for the charged party under 19 CFR part 354.

The following factual information is generally regarded as business proprietary information, if it is so
designated by the submitter:

•   Business or trade secrets concerning the nature of a product or production process;

•   Production costs (but not the identity of the production components unless a particular component
    is a trade secret);

•   Distribution costs (but not channels of distribution);

•   Terms of sale (but not terms of sale offered to the public);

•   Prices of individual sales, likely sales, or other offers (but not components of prices, such
    as transportation, if based on published schedules, dates of sale, product description
    (other than business or trade secrets described above), or order numbers);

•   Names of particular customers, distributors, or suppliers (but not destination of sale or
    designation of type of customer, distributor, or supplier, unless the destination or
    designation would reveal the name);

•   In a AD proceeding, the exact amount of the dumping margin on individual sales;

•   In a CVD proceeding, the exact amount of the benefit applied for or received by a person
    from each of the programs under investigation or review (but not descriptions of the
    operation of the programs, or the amount if included in official public statements or
    documents or publications, or the ad valorem countervailable subsidy rate calculated for
    each person under a program);

•   The names of particular persons from whom business proprietary information was obtained;

•   The position of a domestic producer or workers regarding a petition; and

•   Any other specific business information the release of which to the public would cause
    substantial harm to the competitive position of the submitter.

Further Information

•   See Commerce Department Regulation 19 CFR. § 351.105 (Revised 2/98).