CIT Orders Fix to Separate Respondents Rate in Wood Flooring AD Case After Related CAFC Opinion

The Court of International Trade in a June 2 opinion remanded an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China to the Commerce Department after a related ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found the mandatory respondents to not be subject to the AD order. In the remand, Commerce is to determine a new rate for the separate rate respondents now that the existing 0.79% dumping margin for the mandatory respondents' rate no longer applies.

Following the original antidumping order on the wood flooring imports from China in late 2011, an administrative review was conducted for entries in 2011-12. In the review, Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Ltd. and Dunhua City Jisen Wood Industry Co. were selected as the two mandatory respondents. After the review concluded, Fine Furniture and Dunhua, soon to be joined by 40 other Chinese producers and exporters of the subject merchandise, brought a case before CIT challenging various adjustments Commerce made to establish their dumping rate. Getting the rate down to 0.79% following a court-ordered remand, all proceedings were then stayed pending the result of the Changzhou Hawd case in the Federal Circuit.

The plaintiffs in the Changzhou Hawd case, Fine Furniture and Dunhua among them, argued that they should be excluded from the underlying wood flooring antidumping order since the mandatory respondents upon which their AD rates should have been based received de minimis AD duty rates in Commerce's final determination. The case was originally heard in CIT, where the court sided with the plaintiffs. The Federal Circuit then affirmed the judgment. From there, a Joint Status Report was issued by all parties in which a remand was requested to adjust the separate respondents rate in the administrative review since the mandatory respondents rates upon which it was based were dropped from the AD order.

Judge Timothy Stanceu obliged, remanding the case with instructions to "determine an antidumping duty rate to be applied to these respondents." Given the Federal Circuit decision, Stanceu found that no further litigation was needed on adjustments Commerce made to establish the dumping margin.

Defendants also moved to dismiss Fine Furniture and Dunhua from the case since they were removed from the AD order. However, Stanceu ruled that the two exporters can remain parties to the litigation. "The court rules that the two plaintiffs may remain as parties to the case until the court has received notice that each has obtained its full relief, i.e., that all of their respective entries covered by this appeal have been liquidated and all excess duties refunded," Stanceu said.

(Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. United States, Slip Op. 21-69, CIT Consol. # 14-00135, dated 06/02/21, Judge Stanceu. Attorneys: Sarah Wyss of Mowry & Grimson for plaintiff Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited; Gregory Menegaz of deKieffer & Horgan for plaintiff Dunhua City Jisen Wood Industry Co.; Tara Hogan for defendant U.S. government)