CIT Rejects Another Domestic Mfg Co's Bid for CDSOA Funds

Consistent with other recent rulings on similar claims, the Court of International Trade dismissed a challenge by domestic manufacturer Standard Furniture Manufacturing Co., Inc. to its exclusion from the list of affected domestic parties (ADPs) eligible to receive a share of AD duties collected on wooden bedroom furniture from China under the Byrd Amendment (aka the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA), and its request for an injunction to delay the distribution of duties to ADPs. The CIT chiefly based its dismissal on comparable challenges addressed by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in SKF USA Inc. v. U.S. (556 F. 3d 1337-2009) (SKF).

In reply to Standard Furniture's argument that it should still be eligible for a share of duties even though it had opposed the AD petition on wooden bedroom furniture from China, the court explained that the CAFC had upheld the CDSOA's “petition support requirement” and had affirmed that “those who did not support a petition should not be rewarded.” In denying Standard Furniture's claim that the requirement to express support ran against its First Amendment rights, the CIT distinguished the CDSOA's petition support requirement from recent Supreme Court cases involving freedom of speech in political contexts.

Citing reasoning settled by the SKF decision, the CIT rejected Standard Furniture's claim that the CDSOA violated its rights under the Equal Protection Amendment by treating domestic parties who supported the petition differently from others. Based in part on the chronology of the CDSOA enactment, the petition against wooden bedroom furniture from China, and the company's claims, the court dismissed Standard Furniture's claim that its due process rights were violated by the potentially retroactive nature of the petition support requirement in the CDSOA.

Finally, the court denied the firm's request for an injunction to delay AD duty distributions to ADPs.

(Slip Op. 12-21, dated 2/17/12, Judges Carman, Stanceu, and Gordon)