CIT Remands Wooden Flooring AD Review in Confidential Opinion

The Court of International Trade in a confidential March 11 opinion remanded the Commerce Department's final results of the sixth review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. In a letter to the litigants, Judge Richard Eaton said he intends to issue a public version of the opinion "in the near future," giving parties until March 18 to review the confidential information in the matter (Fusong Jinlong Wooden Group Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 19-00144).

In October, the court sustained Commerce's method for picking an adverse facts available rate for AD respondent Sino-Maple. Eaton partially vacated his previous opinion in the case following oral argument with the parties, finding that the agency wasn't barred from using mandatory respondent Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co.'s highest transaction-specific AD rate as Sino-Maple's AFA rate (see 2310040051).

Eaton said that because the case was previously remanded solely on this point, Commerce didn't need to submit a remand redetermination. The judge noted in that decision that a later opinion will decide the issues "upon which it previously reserved decision," including Commerce's inclusion of Sino-Maple's AFA rate in calculating the separate rate, the calculation of the separate rate, whether the separate rate is aberrational and whether the use of total AFA in calculating the separate rate for the fully cooperative respondents violates the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.