Chinese Exporters of Wood Mouldings Say Trading Company Was Never Exporter of Products

Plaintiffs in a case regarding the antidumping and countervailing duty reviews on wood mouldings and millwork from China filed two briefs Sept. 25 with the Court of International Trade, again arguing that, one, one respondent’s trading company should have been entitled to the same separate rate as the respondent itself, and, two, that the Commerce Department illegitimately chose to end its review of another respondent early and instead use adverse facts available (China Cornici Co. Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #s 23-000216, -00217).

Exporters RaoPing HongRong Handicrafts and China Cornici each defended its own motion for judgment, filed in April (see 2404240065).

RaoPing alleged that Commerce had failed to tell CBP that it also did business under the trading company Chen Chui, making Chen Chui eligible for RaoPing’s de minimis separate rate. Instead, the trading company’s entries were liquidated under the 220.87% China-wide rate. The U.S., in response, claimed that this was just “the consequence of the normal operation of the administrative review process” because Chen Chui was a separate entity to RaoPing and hadn’t filed a separate rate application.

But “RaoPing’s Separate Rate Application (‘SRA’) and accompanying supplemental questionnaire demonstrated that Chen Chui was an integral part of its sales distribution to the United States,” the exporter said.

It said that Chen Chui never actually took custody of any merchandise; rather, it was only a selling agent for RaoPing, since Chen Chui was a Taiwanese company without the requisite qualifications to export from China.

In other words, Chen Chui is “neither a Chinese company nor the actual exporter from China -- both requirements to complete the SRA pursuant to Commerce’s own guidance,” RaoPing said. It called it “troubling” that Commerce still expected Chen Chui to seek a separate rate.

All of the shipments in question that CBP attributed to Chen Chui were actually RaoPing’s, it said. It said that the only reason the trading company appeared in the “Manufacturer/Shipper ID” section of the shipment’s entry forms was because Chen Chui was the invoicer for those shipments.

If Chen Chui was required to file a separate rate application under U.S. regulations, “then the time has come to fundamentally reexamine the purpose of Commerce’s SRA process and its many deficiencies, the most glaring of which would be what Commerce is proposing here -- the imposition of the SRA on unsuspecting, private, and market-economy companies,” RaoPing said.

In turn, the plaintiffs also argued in support of exporter China Cornici’s claim that Commerce rescinded the review of its products too early. Cornici argued that the department may only do so in certain situations, none of which apply at present. The U.S. responded that Cornici had failed to exhaust its arguments during administrative proceedings.

In the second brief, Cornici disagreed. It said it hadn’t actually had an opportunity to raise the argument that Commerce lacked the statutory authority to end the review. The U.S. had pointed to comments the department sought after issuing its Notice of Intent to Rescind, but that notice was just that -- a notice of intent to rescind, not an actual rescission, it said.

“The notice was an opportunity for Plaintiffs to supplement the absent evidence of their reviewable entries during the POR, which they adequately did in their comments on the rescission notice, as opposed to an opportunity to rebut Commerce’s statutory authority to take such an action, as misstated by Defendant,” it said.

Cornici said the U.S. also argued that Cornici could have likewise raised the issue in rebuttal briefs to a petitioner’s response. But rebuttal briefs can only respond to the arguments raised by the opposing party; they can’t raise new substantive claims, it pointed out.