Chinese Pea Protein Exporters Contest Results of 2023 Investigation, Seeking Separate Rate

In two complaints before the Court of International Trade, Chinese pea protein exporters argued that the Commerce Department had unlawfully refused to assign separate rates to either mandatory respondent in a 2023 review, resulting in a separate rate dumping margin of 122.19% and a countervailing duty rate of 15.78% (Zhaoyuan Junbang Trading Co. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00179, -00180).

The exporters, led by mandatory respondent Zhaoyuan Junbang Trading Co., said Jungbang is a publicly traded company and therefore can’t be under government control. Jungbang was hit with the China-wide antidumping duty rate of 280.31% and a countervailing duty rate of 15.09%.

But Jungbang is a “100% subsidiary” of the listed company Shuangta Food, the complaint said. Publicly traded companies, it said, are “necessarily” not state-controlled.

The complaint also took issue with Commerce’s determination that Junbang’s local government exerts control over its operations and export activities, saying that the “party organization and party committee referenced in the Articles of Association” weren’t “government bodies,” as the department had found.

Commerce wrongly held that “a working relationship between an individual and a town results in the individual being state controlled,” it said. And it argued that a “legal representative” registered “with the registration authority” was not necessarily a state official.

Regarding the department's CVD calculation, Jungbang argued that an adverse inference was improperly applied for China’s Export Buyer’s Credit Program. And it claimed Commerce used the wrong denominator when calculating the CVD rate for certain programs, “selecting benefits from one period of time and the sales for a different period of time.”