Lumber Exporter Challenges Failure to Revoke AD Order in Expedited Sunset Review
The Commerce Department illegally failed to revoke the antidumping duty order on softwood lumber from Canada for exporter Resolute FP Canada in the expedited first sunset review of the AD order, the exporter argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. The four-count suit says that Commerce unlawfully said Resolute FP was selling merchandise below value via its use of the Cohen's d test, which found the company to be guilty of "masked" dumping, and zeroing (Resolute FP Canada v. United States, CIT # 23-00095).
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The exporter added that the agency failed to apply the "good cause" exception, which would have had Commerce consider "other relevant factors in this sunset review," including a report by a statistics expert. Failure to use this exception also led Commerce to disregard key U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit precedent on the use of the d test and "other relevant factors," the brief said.
Resolute FP was a mandatory respondent in the original AD investigation and the first administrative review, where it received a 3.20% and a 1.15% dumping rate, respectively. The company was not picked as a respondent in the second, third or fourth reviews. When the agency proceeded with an expedited sunset review of the order, Resolute FP asked the agency to find that, with regard to the company, "there is no likelihood of continuation or recurrence of dumping" were the order to be revoked. Commerce ultimately denied this request.
The company argued administratively, and now at the trade court, that the agency should have considered Federal Circuit precedents on the "judicial use of substantial expert literature in the field of statistical analysis, have established that" the d test "is defective and its application unreasonable." Resolute FP added that "extraordinary circumstances" exist for "reporting to the Commission that a zero margin is likely to prevail upon revocation of the antidumping duty order as to Plaintff."