Commerce Continues to Reject Separate Rate Status for 5 Tire Exporters in AD Review

The Commerce Department on Oct. 28 continued to reject separate rate status for exporters Mayrun Tyre (Hong Kong), Shandong Hengyu Science & Technology Co., Winrun Tyre Co., Shandong Wanda Boto Tyre Co. and Shandong Linglong Tyre Co. in the 2016-17 review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China (YC Rubber Co. (North America) v. U.S., CIT # 19-00069).

Submitting remand results to the Court of International Trade, Commerce said that each company failed to submit answers to the agency's section A questionnaire, which effectively is a supplement to their separate rate application, making their applications incomplete. Commerce also denied renewed requests from Mayrun, Hengyu and Winrun to be withdrawn as respondents.

Commerce initially selected only one respondent in the review. The case on the review was sent back to the trade court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Commerce must use more than one respondent where multiple companies request a review (see 2208290026). CIT remanded the case after the second respondent Commerce had chosen withdrew from participation.

The trade court questioned Commerce's methodology for picking the second respondent, which limited the selection to companies with suspended entries and ranked the firms based on their overall import volumes. CIT took issue with the exclusion of Linglong, also remanding the suit on the grounds that the four separate rate applicants were prematurely denied separate rates.

On remand, Commerce picked Wanda Boto, Hengyu, Mayrun, Winrun and Linglong as mandatory respondents, assigning all of them the China-wide rate of 87.99%.

The agency said its review of the CBP data shows that the four largest exporters by volume were, in order, Wanda Boto, Hengyu, Mayrun and Winrun. Kenda was next in order. The agency said Linglong had a larger volume of entries than Kenda, meaning Linglong should have been picked before Kenda, contrary to the parties' claims. Commerce said its "inadvertent failure to select Linglong prior to Kenda in the First Remand Results did not have consequences for Wanda Boto, Hengyu, Mayrun, and Winrun," because they were also picked as additional respondents.

Commerce then defended its decision to reject separate rate status for Wanda Boto, Hengyu, Mayrun and Winrun. While all four were initially granted separate rate status in the underlying AD investigation, they failed to submit certain questionnaire responses in the review. The agency asked for the companies' organizational charts, corporate structure, manufacturing facilities and more.

The agency said it wasn't able to corroborate the companies' claims that they were free from Chinese state control. The companies failed to provide information on their relationships with Chinese state asset management companies, national government, provincial governments, or local or village governments. The four companies also failed to provide information showing that their "export prices were not set by, subject to the approval of, or in any way controlled by a government entity at any level."

Linglong similarly failed to submit these questionnaire responses, the remand results said.

Commerce additionally said the requests that Wanda Boto, Mayrun, Hengyu and Winrun submitted on remand seeking to be withdrawn from consideration should be denied. The agency said it "does not find it appropriate to accept these untimely withdrawal requests where the parties based their renewed requests on, among other things, the passage of time and new selection of an additional mandatory respondent as a result of litigation.”