CBP Made Antidumping Evasion Decision Without Substantial Evidence, Wire Hanger Importer Says

CBP erred when making its finding that importer CEK Group evaded the antidumping duty order on steel wire garment hangers from China by transshipping them through Thailand, CEK said in a March 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Among other things, CEK alleged in its 12-count complaint that CBP failed to address all of the arguments raised by the importer, made its decision without substantial evidence of transshipment and improperly refused to grant CEK access to business confidential information in the case (CEK Group v. United States, CIT #22-00082).

During the investigation, CEK said it had a number of high-resolution videos showing the operations of the Thailand factory. But when the importer tried to submit the video, CBP "created arbitrary and unstated rules making it impossible" to submit them without serious compression, the complaint said. CBP refused to accept the videos and even turned own CEK's suggested alternate submission methods. The border agency then used adverse inferences based in part on the bad quality of videos that were submitted.

"CBP was aware of the existence of the higher quality videos and the broader range of times covered by all videos and CEK’s outstanding and continuing offer to submit such information but refused to request such information when it became aware that its filing limitations had adversely and unfairly affected the quality of such video," the complaint said. "CBP cannot refuse to accept complete information proffered in a high-resolution format, and then apply adverse inferences because the data provided was not complete or of sufficient resolution."

CEK further took issue with CBP's refusal to allow the importer more pages to respond to the many arguments made by CBP in the investigation. In the Enforce and Protect Act case, CEK alleged that CBP considered a host of "irrelevant information" such as the nationality of the owners of the Thai facility, the plant's ownership structure and the relationship between CEK and the owner of the Thai facility.