CIT Upholds Zero Percent Separate-Rate, Firm Inclusion Explanation in Hardwood Plywood From China Opinion

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's fifth remand redetermination of the antidumping duty investigation of hardwood plywood products from China, according to an Oct. 10 opinion. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sustained Commerce's separate rate along with its decisions to exclude Jiangyang Wood and Dehua TB, and to include Sanfortune Wood and Longyuan Wood within the order.

Commerce had "at least six alternatives" for determining the separate-rate dumping margin, Choe-Groves said, but on the latest remand, the department correctly rejected four additional options proposed by the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood.

The department correctly explained that any methodology that relied on weight-average unit values reported in quantity and value as the basis for U.S. price would not have been better than the methods it relied on in the third and fourth remand redeterminations, both rejected by the court. Commerce's ultimate decision to use the zero percent rate assigned to Linyi Chengen was correct, Choe-Groves said, because the department had failed to support its preferred rate of 57.36%, based on a simple average of the 114.72% AFA-based dumping margin rate assigned to Dongfang and Chengen's zero rate.

The department had argued that the 57.36% rate was appropriate because it averaged the only two rates assigned to parties in the proceeding. The court told Commerce last December that it couldn't set the rate for non-examined companies simply by averaging a de minimis and an adverse facts available rate (see 2212210078). Commerce then said it was "left with no viable alternative" but to assign, under protest, Chengen’s zero percent rate as it was the "only remaining alternative on the record" (see 2303170047).

Choe-Groves also ruled that Commerce provided reasonable explanations for its decisions to exclude from the order voluntary applicants who submitted timely requests while including those that did not. The department correctly distinguished between Dehua TB and Jiangyang Wood, who submitted "hundreds of pages of responses" on the one hand, and Sanfortune and Longyuan Wood, who submitted only "two-page requests" without any questionnaire responses, on the other, Choe-Groves said.

Commerce's explanation that Jiangyang and Dehua filed "the same information expected from a mandatory respondent by the same deadline," was persuasive because the statute covers voluntary respondents that submit "information requested from exporters or producers selected for examination," Choe-Groves said.

(Linyi Chengen Import and Exporter v. U.S. , CIT Consol. # 18-00002, Slip Op. 23-147, dated 10/10/23; Judge: Jennifer Choe-Groves; Attorneys: Gregory Menegaz of deKieffer & Horgan for plaintiff Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co.; Tara Hogan for defendant U.S. government)