Certain Electrolyte Containing Beverages and Labeling and Packaging Thereof (II); Notice of a Commission Determination To Review in Part an Initial Determination Granting a Motion for Summary Determination of Violation; Request for Written Submissions on the Issue Under Review and on Remedy, the Public Interest, and Bonding

<NOTICE> INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION <DEPDOC>[Investigation No. 337-TA-1435]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Certain Electrolyte Containing Beverages and Labeling and Packaging Thereof (II); Notice of a Commission Determination To Review in Part an Initial Determination Granting a Motion for Summary Determination of Violation; Request for Written Submissions on the Issue Under Review and on Remedy, the Public Interest, and Bonding</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. International Trade Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International Trade Commission (“Commission”) has determined to review in part an initial determination (“ID”) (Order No. 18) of the presiding administrative law judge (“ALJ”) granting a motion for summary determination of violation. The Commission requests written submissions from the parties on the issue under review and from the parties, interested government agencies, and other interested persons on the issues of remedy, the public interest, and bonding, under the schedule set forth below. </SUM> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Edward S. Jou, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, U.S. International Trade Commission, 500 E Street SW, Washington, DC 20436, telephone (202) 205-3316. Copies of non-confidential documents filed in connection with this investigation may be viewed on the Commission's electronic docket (EDIS) at <E T="03">https://edis.usitc.gov.</E> For help accessing EDIS, please email <E T="03">EDIS3Help@usitc.gov.</E> General information concerning the Commission may also be obtained by accessing its internet server at <E T="03">https://www.usitc.gov.</E> Hearing-impaired persons are advised that information on this matter can be obtained by contacting the Commission's TDD terminal on (202) 205-1810. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The Commission instituted this investigation on February 3, 2025, based upon a complaint, as supplemented (the “Complaint”), filed on behalf of CAB Enterprises, Inc. of Houston, Texas; Sueros y Bebidas Rehidratantes, S.A. de C.V. of Guadalajara, Mexico; Brazos River Ventures LLC of Albany, New York; and Electrolit Manufacturing USA Inc. of Albany, New York (collectively, “Complainants”). 90 FR 8811-12 (Feb. 3, 2025). The complaint, as supplemented, alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (“section 337”) based upon the importation into the United States, the sale for importation, and the sale within the United States after importation of certain electrolyte containing beverages and labeling and packaging thereof by reason of infringement of one or more of U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4,222,726; U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4,833,885; U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4,717,350; and U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4,717,232. <E T="03">Id.</E> The Complaint further alleges that an industry in the United States exists or is in the process of being established as required by subsection (a)(2) of section 337. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 8811. The Commission's notice of investigation named eight respondents: Empacadora Torres Mora, S. de R.L. de C.V. of Monterrey, Mexico; Version Expotaciones, S.R.L. de C.V. of Tijuana, Mexico; Mabed Distribuciones, S.A. de C.V. of Matamoros, Mexico; Salfe International Trade, S. de R.L. de C.V. (“Salfe”) of Garza Garcia, Mexico; Exportadora de Abarrotes del Pacifico, S.A. de C.V. (“Pacifico”) of Torreon, Mexico; Centro de Distribucion de Carbon Allende, S.A. de C.V. of Allende, Mexico; Wenceslao Colunga Ruiz (“Ruiz”) of Camargo, Mexico; and Distribuidora de Productos Heres, S.A. de C.V. (“Heres”) of Allende, Mexico. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 8812. The Office of Unfair Import Investigations (“OUII”) is also a party to this investigation. <E T="03">Id.</E> The investigation was terminated with respect to respondents Ruiz and Heres based on withdrawal of the complaint. Order No. 7 (Mar. 11, 2025), <E T="03">unreviewed by</E> Comm'n Notice (Apr. 9, 2025). On April 18, 2025, the ALJ issued an order requiring the remaining respondents in the investigation to show cause why they should not be found in default. Order No. 9 (Apr. 18, 2025). Respondent Pacifico filed an answer to the Complaint on May 1, 2025, and the investigation was subsequently terminated with respect to Pacifico based on a consent order. Order No. 10 (May 23, 2025), <E T="03">unreviewed by</E> Comm'n Notice (June 17, 2025). The investigation was also terminated with respect to respondent Salfe based on a consent order. Order No. 12 (June 25, 2025), <E T="03">unreviewed by</E> Comm'n Notice (July 14, 2025). The remaining four respondents did not file any response to the complaint and notice of investigation or to the order to show cause for failure to do so. On July 21, 2025, Complainants filed a motion for summary determination of violation, and on July 22, 2025, Complainants filed a motion for leave for acceptance of a corrected motion for summary determination, which was granted pursuant to Order No. 15 (July 22, 2025). On August 4, 2025, OUII filed a response in support of Complainants' motion. On September 10, 2025, the ALJ issued the subject ID granting the motion for summary determination, which included a recommended determination on remedy and bonding. No petitions for review of the ID were filed. Having reviewed the record of the investigation, including the ID, the pleadings, and the parties' briefing on summary determination, the Commission has determined to review the ID in part. Specifically, the Commission has determined to review the ID's findings with respect to the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement. The Commission has determined not to review the other findings in the ID. In connection with its review, the Commission requests responses to the following question: <EXTRACT> <E T="03">Question 1:</E> On or before the date of the complaint, explain how and to what extent the investments relating to the Texas manufacturing facility were with respect to the protected domestic industry articles as required under section 337(a)(2). Please provide citation to any evidence in the record that would support this. If such investments were not exclusively with respect to the protected domestic industry articles, explain how the asserted domestic investments for the facility can be allocated with respect to the protected domestic industry articles. </EXTRACT> The parties are requested to brief their positions with reference to the applicable law and the existing evidentiary record. In connection with the final disposition of this investigation, the statute authorizes issuance of, <E T="03">inter alia,</E> (1) an exclusion order that could result in the exclusion of the subject articles from entry into the United States; and/or (2) cease and desist orders that could result in the respondents being required to cease and desist from engaging in unfair acts in the importation and sale of such articles. Accordingly, the Commission is interested in receiving written submissions that address the form of remedy, if any, that should be ordered. If a party seeks exclusion of an article from entry into the United States for purposes other than entry for consumption, the party should so indicate and provide information establishing that activities involving other types of entry either are adversely affecting it or likely to do so. For background, see <E T="03">Certain Devices for Connecting Computers via Telephone Lines,</E> Inv. No. 337-TA-360, USITC Pub. No. 2843, Comm'n Op. at 7-10 (Dec. 1994). In connection with its remedy determination, the Commission requests responses to the following question: <EXTRACT> <E T="03">Question 2:</E> Identify evidence or allegations that the foreign defaulting respondents maintain commercially significant inventories and/or engage in significant commercial operations in the United States. </EXTRACT> The parties are requested to brief their positions with reference to the applicable law and the existing evidentiary record. The statute requires the Commission to consider the effects of that remedy upon the public interest. The public interest factors the Commission will consider include the effect that an exclusion order and cease and desist orders would have on: (1) the public health and welfare, (2) competitive conditions in the U.S. economy, (3) U.S. production of articles that are like or directly competitive with those that are subject to investigation, and (4) U.S. consumers. The Commission is therefore interested in receiving written submissions that address the aforementioned public interest factors in the context of this investigation. If the Commission orders some form of remedy, the U.S. Trade Representative, as delegated by the President, has 60 days to approve, disapprove, or take no action on the Commission's determination. <E T="03">See</E> Presidential Memorandum of July 21, 2005, 70 FR 43251 (July 26, 2005). During this period, the subject articles would be entitled to enter the United States under bond, in an amount determined by the Commission and prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury. The Commission is therefore interested in receiving submissions concerning the amount of the bond that should be imposed if a remedy is ordered. <E T="03">Written Submissions:</E> Parties are requested to file written responses to the briefing questions above. Parties to the investigation, interested government agencies, and any other interested parties are encouraged to file written submissions on the issues of remedy, the public interest, and bonding. Such submissions should address the recommended determination by the ALJ on remedy and bonding. In their initial submission, Complainants are als ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━