US Charges Florida Man With Dodging AD on Steel Hangers, Seeks $7 Million

The U.S. brought a complaint July 31 against a limited liability company and its owner for dodging antidumping duties on steel hangers, which it alleged “decimated the steel wire hanger manufacturing industry, leading to the closure of many manufacturing facilities across the United States and the loss of hundreds of U.S. jobs” (United States v. Zhe “John” Liu, CIT # 24-00132).

The government asked for $6,920,031.72 in damages, plus post-judgment interest.

Florida resident Zhe “John” Liu “owned, operated, controlled, and was an agent of” multiple entities that imported steel hangers, including CEK, the complaint said. The companies imported the hangers from China, but claimed they came from other countries, including Thailand, India and Malaysia.

Liu began lying about the hangers’ country of origin after the Department of Commerce set a China-wide antidumping duty rate of 186.98%, the U.S. said. Initially, Liu acknowledged that the hangers he was importing came from China and paid the duties for them. However, he began discussing engaging in the deception with other parties around 2011, it said. A domestic petitioner filed an Enforce and Protect Act claim against him in 2017.

That year, the government conducted a site visit of Liu’s alleged exporters in Malaysia and discovered they were not manufacturing wire hangers, it said. Less than three weeks later, the company Liu had set up to work with those exporters was dissolved, it said.

Throughout this time, Liu repeatedly demonstrated his thorough knowledge of antidumping duties to other parties, the complaint said.

And on top of lying about their country of origin, it said, Liu also filed his claimed Thai-origin hangers under the wrong Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading, enabling him to escape a 3.9% duty on those entries.

It charged Liu that and his remaining company, CEK, had committed fraud. If not, it said, they had committed either gross negligence or negligence.