Commerce's Duty Calculations on China Wood Flooring Source of Multiple CIT Complaints

The Commerce Department erred in its calculations when assigning countervailing duty rates in an administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China, according to three separate complaints filed at the Court of International Trade. The complaints, all filed on Aug. 17, primarily challenge Commerce's findings of less than adequate remuneration (LTAR) in calculating duty rates and adverse facts applied to the government of China.

In its complaint, Baroque said that Commerce improperly used weighted averages of UN Comtrade data instead of International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) data in its valuation of plywood, face and back veneers for its LTAR benefit calculation. Baroque also argued that Commerce should have used the company's reported freight costs instead of an average of area costs. Finally, Baroque argued that Commerce considered all of Baroque's suppliers to be Chinese government entities and thus improperly countervailed all input purchases. Baroque asked the court to remand Commerce's final results with instructions to issue a new determination (Baroque Timber Industries v. U.S., CIT #22-00210).

In its complaint, Evolutions Flooring argued that Commerce incorrectly applied adverse facts to its consideration of the Export Buyer’s Credit Program and made errors in its calculation of benchmark data. This resulted in an incorrect margin assigned to non-selected respondents. Evolutions asked the court to order Commerce to recalculate the CVD margins assigned to Evolutions and all companies eligible for a separate rate (Evolutions Flooring v. U.S., CIT #22-00209).

In its complaint, Fine Furniture argued that Commerce’s inclusion of backboard purchases in the provision of veneers for LTAR program was unsupported by evidence. Fine Furniture argued, similarly to Baroque, that Commerce’s inclusion of UN Comtrade data in its calculation of the veneer benchmark was incorrect and that the agency instead should have relied solely on ITTO data. Finally, Commerce's decision to average data in its plywood benchmark calculation instead of relying on ITTO's price lists was unsupported by record evidence, Fine Furniture said. Fine Furniture asked the court to remand the case with instructions to recalculate the "all others" duty rate Commerce assigned to it (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited v. U.S., CIT #22-00211).