Commerce Relied on Faulty Data in Picking Mandatory Respondent in CVD Case, Exporters Argue

The Commerce Department failed to properly select respondents for a countervailing duty administrative review and assign an accurate CVD rate to the non-selected respondents, wood flooring exporters Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co., Jiangsu Keri Wood Co. and Sino-Maple Co. told the Court of International Trade in a May 14 brief supporting their motion for judgment. Commerce used faulty CBP data when picking its mandatory respondents for the case, and as a result incorrectly determined that Jiangsu Guyu International Trading Co. was one of the two largest exporters of the subject merchandise, leading to its selection as a mandatory respondent and subsequently skewing the all-other respondent rate in the investigation, the brief said.

The dispute arises from Commerce's 2017 CV duty administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. After consolidating cases in CIT, 30 plaintiffs are involved in the case, leading to a flurry of filings on May 14 seeking judgment in the case.

In the review, Commerce used allegedly faulty data to select Baroque Timber Industries and Jiangsu Guyu as the mandatory respondents because they were the two largest exporters of multilayered wood flooring. Keri Wood and Sino-Maple point out that the petitioners in the case requested a quantity and value questionnaire be sent to the respondents because of doubts whether Jiangsu Guyu was one of the two largest exporters. Commerce rejected these requests for further information and maintained Jiangsu Guyu as a mandatory respondent.

“Commerce failed to discuss the arguments of the parties as to why the Jiangsu Guyu data were flawed, on their face,” the exporters argued. “Instead, it took the position that 'there is nothing to see here, just move on.'” The plaintiffs conceded that while the court generally holds it is reasonable for Commerce to rely on CBP data, the agency must also “account for record evidence that detracts from the reliability of such data.” Multiple parties pointed out the faults in the data, the plaintiffs said. Commerce then suggested that the parties should have submitted more evidence but offers no solution for how the parties should have obtained confidential information from Jiangsu Guyu. The exporters also argued that Commerce had sufficient time to select an additional respondent once the questions on the data were raised, especially since the agency declared its intention to select the two largest exporters by quantity to review.

Since the CVD rate granted to the other respondents in the case is derived from the weighted average of the mandatory respondents' rates, the non-selected rate is not supported by evidence, the brief said. “Given that Jiangsu Guyu was not one of the largest exporters, its margin cannot be considered representative of the margin for all producers and exporters,” the exporters said.