Guest Editorial: Wooden Bedroom Furniture Anti-dumping Case

Furniture World News Desk on 12/28/2014

By William Perry

On November 18, 2014, in Mark David, a Division of: Baker, Knapp & Tubbs, Inc. et al v. United States, a decision that is on my blog, www.uschinatradewar.com, the Court of International Trade (“CIT”) affirmed a Commerce Department decision of a 216% rate for Maoji, a major Chinese exporter, in the Wooden Bedroom Furniture case creating possibly 10s of millions of dollars in retroactive liability for US importers.

In that decision, Judge Tsoucalis stated:

Maoji does not dispute that they failed to participate fully in the review, and that they therefore can be subjected to an AFA rate. The issue before the court is instead whether Commerce’s application of the 216.01% PRC-wide AFA rate to Maoji was reasonable. Plaintiff argues that the 216.01% PRC-wide AFA rate was neither reliable nor relevant. . . . According to Plaintiff, Commerce applied an “outdated” and “unsupported” margin that did not reflect Maoji’s commercial reality. . . .

Plaintiff does not appear to dispute Commerce’s finding that Maoji failed to rebut the presumption of government control in the Final Results. During the review Maoji notified Commerce that it was not practicable for it to provide a response to the Section D questionnaire or the supplemental Section A questionnaire. . . . Commerce determined that Maoji was a part of the PRC-wide entity. . . . Because Maoji failed to respond to Commerce’s questionnaires regarding its separate rate eligibility during the review, Commerce reasonably concluded that Maoji failed to demonstrate its absence of government control. . . .

Unlike Orient in Lifestyle I, here, Maoji failed to qualify for separate rate status. As a result it received the PRC-wide AFA rate. Because Maoji was part of the PRC-wide entity, Commerce was not required to calculate a separate AFA rate relevant to Maoji’s commercial reality. . . . Commerce was only required to corroborate the rate to the PRC-wide entity. . . . Therefore, Plaintiff’s reliance on Lifestyle I is misplaced. Lifestyle I does not call into question the PRC-wide rate as applied to the PRC-wide entity, rather it only discredits its application to Orient, which successfully established the absence of both de jure and de facto government control.

Several years ago, an importer asked me to meet with Maoji in Shanghai and talk to them about the Wooden Bedroom Furniture case. From talking to the importer, I knew that Maoji was exporting a lot of furniture from different Chinese manufacturers and asked the Manager from Maoji, what would happen if Commerce picked Maoji as a mandatory respondent in the review investigation and it had to report factors of production/consumption factors from all Maoji’s suppliers? Instead of replying, the Manager got mad and started yelling at me, “Who told you we would have to supply production information for all our suppliers?” End of conversation.

In this case, apparently Maoji could not supply its response to Section D of the questionnaire because it was not practicable. Section D of the questionnaire requires the exporters to report consumption factors for its wooden bedroom furniture suppliers/producers. Too many producers apparently did not want to cooperate with Maoji and supply their production information.

But now all the importers that imported from Maoji are exposed to retroactive liability of 216% on imports. Based on my past experience, this means that importers will owe millions and possibly 10s of millions of dollars on these imports.

A month ago while in Beijing during a meeting with the Chamber of Light Industrial Products, a Chinese Chamber official told me that he regarded the Wooden Bedroom Furniture case as a victory for Chinese companies. My response was that this same case has created retroactive liability of close to, if not more than, $1 billion for US importers. Last year, exports of furniture from Vietnam went by exports of furniture from China. So if the Wooden Bedroom Furniture case was a victory, I would hate to see a loss. In fact, this case has been a disaster.

But this case along with the comments of the Chamber official indicate that Chinese companies simply do not understand the impact of these cases on US importers and in some cases, simply do not care. I have met with company owners in High Point, North Carolina, who have seen their entire $50 million dollar blow up because they had the temerity to import Chinese wooden bedroom furniture from China under an antidumping order.

The irony of the Wooden Bedroom Furniture case is illustrated by the December 2010 ITC determination in the Wooden Bedroom Furniture from China Sunset Review investigation, where ITC Commissioner Pearson stated the antidumping order has not helped the US industry: 
this investigation . . . raises some troubling questions. . . . This industry would have faced difficulties during the period of review under any circumstances, given the depth of the recession and its extensive effects on the housing market. But even before the recession began, the industry was not apparently gaining much benefit from the imposition of the order. The domestic industry’s market share continued to decline after the order, as did production, capacity utilization, and employment. In the long run the domestic industry might have been expected to struggle to retain any benefits from this order as importers and retailers sought supply in other, lower-cost markets outside China. But the record here suggests that the domestic industry gained little even before those adjustments began to be made...

I am mindful that the law does not require that an antidumping order or countervailing duty order be shown to benefit the domestic industry in order to reach an affirmative finding in a five-year review...  In this particular investigation, additional costs and distortions have been added by the use of the administrative review and settlement process, with little evidence that these distortions have yielded any benefits to the industry overall, the U.S. consumer, or the U.S. taxpayer.

So if the antidumping order does not benefit the US industry, why doesn’t the US industry simply lift the order? Two reasons, first the US industry and the lawyers representing the industry have made money from private settlements with Chinese companies and US importers. Second, although the AD order may not have helped the US industry directly, it has had the effect of eliminating a number of the US industry’s direct competitors that are US importers forcing them into bankruptcy because they imported furniture under an antidumping order against China.

Because of these problems for US importers, not only in the Furniture case, but in many antidumping and countervailing duty cases against China, we have created the Import Alliance for America for US importers, US end user companies and also Chinese companies. We have been working with APCO, a well-known lobbying/government relations firm in Washington DC, to establish a US importers/end users lobbying coalition to lobby against the expansion of US China Trade War and the antidumping and countervailing duty laws against China for the benefit of US companies.

On September 18, 2013, ten US Importers agreed to form the Import Alliance for America. The objective of the Coalition is to educate the US Congress and Administration on the damaging effects of the US China trade war, especially US antidumping and countervailing duty laws, on US importers and US downstream industries.

The Import Alliance is targeting several issues, but the two major issues are: Working for market economy treatment for China in 2016 as provided in the US China WTO Agreement and working against retroactive liability for US importers. The United States is the only country that has retroactive liability for its importers in antidumping and countervailing duty cases.

To read more about the Alliance, please see the website of the Import Alliance, http://www.importallianceforamerica.com, and my blog, www.uschinatradewar.com.

William Perry is a partner in the international law firm, Dorsey & Whitney. Mr. Perry has extensive experience representing foreign exporters, U.S. importers and U.S. end users in international trade cases, including antidumping, safeguards, and intellectual property cases.