Exporter Didn't Exhaust Claim That Commerce Couldn't Rescind Review, US Says

The Commerce Department was allowed to rescind the antidumping and countervailing duty reviews on wood moldings and millwork products from China, the U.S. said July 30 in response to several exporters’ April 25 motion for judgment (see 2404240065) (China Cornici Co. Ltd. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00217).

The department may only rescind reviews under a few circumstances, none of which apply to the present circumstances, exporter China Cornici said.

But the plaintiffs hadn’t mentioned that argument in their complaint; they had failed to exhaust it, thus waiving it, the government said. And “even if this theory is not waived,” they should have raised the argument before the agency -- but “China Cornici did not argue that Commerce lacked legal authority to rescind the review on that ground in its letter in lieu of a case brief, instead asserting that it had shipped subject merchandise during the period of review and its importer had paid duties,” the U.S. said.

In the alternative, it said, Commerce did have the authority to rescind the review because none of China Cornici’s entries had been suspended. In other words, the exporter didn’t have a reviewable entry during the period of review, it said.

An administrative review is retrospective, it said. For Commerce to conduct one, “there must be evidence of entries during the period of review and the entries must be suspended so that Commerce may direct Customs to liquidate those entries at the rate determined by Commerce in the review.”

Another plaintiff, RaoPing HongRong Handicrafts, also argued that Commerce had failed to tell CBP that the company Chen Chui was its trading company, and thus eligible for RaoPing’s separate rate. As a result, the agency liquidated Chen Chui’s entries under the 220.87% China-wide rate.

In response, the government claimed that Commerce correctly found that Chen Chui couldn’t receive RaoPing’s separate rate because it is a separate entity, wasn’t under review, and hadn’t filed a separate rate application.

Any harm that RaoPing might suffer as a result of Chen Chui’s rate, it said, is “merely the consequence of the normal operation of the administrative review process.”