On Remand, Commerce Assigns Zero Percent All-Others Rate in Hardwood Plywood from China Case

After a fifth remand order, the Commerce Department assigned a zero percent all-others dumping margin in a less-than-fair-value investigation onf certain hardwood plywood products from China, according to remand results released March 16 (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co., Ltd., et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 18-00002).

In its December remand order, Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves found that the 57.36% separate rate was unreasonable and ordered Commerce to recalculate, ruling that Commerce could not set the all-others rate in an AD review simply by taking the average of a de minimis and an adverse facts available rate (see 212210078).

Commerce said that it had previously averaged the "only two rates assigned to parties in this proceeding," the 114.72% AFA-based dumping margin rate assigned to Dongfang and the de minimis zero percent rate assigned to Chengen. Commerce said, under protest, that it was "left with no viable alternative but to assign Chengen’s zero percent rate to the Separate Rate Plaintiffs" as the de minimis was the "only remaining alternative on the record."

Dehua TB and Jiangyang Wood, the two companies that requested voluntary respondent status and submitted all questionnaire responses, will be excluded from the order, Commerce said. Other firms, including plaintiffs Sanfortune and Longyuan, only requested voluntary respondent status and would not be excluded, Commerce said. The requests "required no commitment or effort on behalf of these companies," Commerce said, in contrast to hundreds of pages of questionnaire responses and support documents the other two provided. There is a "significant difference" between companies that merely requested to be selected and those that provided complete questionnaire responses, Commerce said.