Chinese Tire Exporters Argue Against Use of One Mandatory Respondent in Federal Circuit AD Case

Chinese tire exporters argued against the Commerce Department's choice to only use one mandatory respondent in an antidumping case on certain passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, filing opening briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 11. Exporters and appellants ITG Voma Corporation, Suton Tire Resources, YC Rubber Co. and Mayrun Tyre submitted two briefs in the appeal of a Court of International Trade opinion that determined that the statute allows for Commerce to select only one respondent. The exporters argue this is a misinterpretation of the law, citing the language of the governing statute, which includes the plural terms "exporters" or "producers."

The original CIT case stems from the final results in the second administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China covering entries from 2016-17. In the original December 2020 opinion from CIT, Judge Mark Barnett accepted the government's use of "the Definitions Act" in suppport of the argument that the plural terms exporters and producers should be interpreted to include the singular forms of "exporter or producer." The exporters argue that this reading is erroneous since the courts "should look to Congress's intended meaning, not statutory constructions in which plural terms 'might plausibly be read,'" to best interpret the law.