CIT Reverses High AD Rate for China Steel Sinks Exporter for Late Filing by Lawyer
The Court of International Trade on May 5 ordered the Commerce Department to reconsider its decision during the original antidumping duty investigation on drawn stainless steel sinks to assign a Chinese exporter a punitive rate because of a filing that was only 16 hours late.
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A lawyer for Kehuaxing Industrial had realized that he had forgotten to file the company’s response to a quantity and value questionnaire mere hours after the 5 p.m. deadline. He got to work early the next day and filed it by 9 a.m. But Commerce rejected it and, because it said both a separate rate application and a quantity and value questionnaire are required to demonstrate independence from Chinese state control, assigned Kehuaxing to the China-wide entity. That meant Kehuaxing got China-wide AD rate of 76.53%, instead of the 33.51% AD rate it may have gotten otherwise.
CIT found Commerce’s decision to apply such a high rate was out of proportion to the “inconsequential” mistake made by Kehuaxing’s lawyer. Commerce was only lacking the response for minutes of the business day, and the response was still filed soon enough that Kehuaxing couldn’t manipulate it based on responses filed by other companies. The court ordered Commerce to reverse its decision to give Kehuaxing the China-wide rate because of the late filing. It is also making Commerce file its redetermination within 30 days of the May 5 order, “because the rate assigned to Kehuaxing affects cash deposits that are now being collected pursuant to the Final Determination and the antidumping duty order.
(Artisan Manufacturing Corp. v. U.S., Slip Op. 14-52, dated 05/05/14, Judge Stanceu)