Commerce Rejection of EBCP Non-Use Cert at Odds With Lack of Clear Standard, Exporter Says

The Commerce Department has “never specified the scope, content or format” of a certification that a company’s U.S. customers didn't benefit from China’s Export Buyer’s Credit Program, so the agency shouldn't have immediately applied adverse facts available to a Chinese exporter because its non-use certification didn’t fulfill its requirements, the exporter, Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber (GRT), said in a reply brief filed with the Court of International Trade July 21 (Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00229).

In the case, which concerns an antidumping duty review on truck and bus tires from China, Commerce “continues to incorrectly state” that GRT’s answer in a questionnaire, that its sole U.S. customer didn’t use the program, combined with a certification from a GRT executive that all responses in the questionnaire were accurate and complete, didn't constitute a non-use certification, and that GRT was required to submit a separate document, the exporter said (see 2305230050).

But the questionnaire response was “not a ‘blanket statement’ made solely by GRT, but is instead a statement that has been reviewed and certified as accurate by” GRT’s customer and parent company.

Even if Commerce were “not satisfied with what GRT” and its customer/parent “provided then it could have easily requested additional information, which both GRT and [Cooper Rubber and Tire Co.] CTRC were prepared to submit,” GRT said. “Commerce disregarded its own current practice in EBC program investigations by resorting to AFA without providing GRT an opportunity to fill” any gaps, the exporter said.