Trade Court Upholds Surrogate Value Pick for Plywood Input in AD Review
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 15 sustained the Commerce Department's decision on remand to replace existing Brazilian surrogate value information for antidumping duty respondent Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry's plywood input with Malaysian import data. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves upheld the move, which led to a slight drop in Senmao's AD rate to 14.35% from 16.17%, after no challenges to the remand results were received.
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Senmao's case, which concerned the 2019-21 AD administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China, ultimately saw three remand orders addressing various issues with Commerce's surrogate value selections. In the review, the agency initially chose to adjust Brazil's plywood surrogate values by excluding data from Spain, since it distorted the values. In her first remand order, Choe-Groves said Commerce failed to include the document on which it relied when excluding the Spanish data.
In the first remand, Commerce submitted the missing document, though Choe-Groves remanded the issue again on the grounds that the agency failed to give a reasonable explanation for its adjustment of the surrogate values. Commerce stuck with its decision again in the second remand, declining the court's recommendation that it should obtain corrected data from the parties.
In her third remand order, Choe-Groves said Commerce's exclusion of the data was "erroneous," telling the agency to reopen the record and get accurate data for the plywood values (see 2502180046). The agency did just that on remand, reopening the record and ultimately swapping the values it used for the input (see 2505120033). Commerce decided to go with "historical data for Brazilian plywood imports and period of review import data from Malaysia."
Senmao signed off on the change, and Choe-Groves said the remand decision was "supported by substantial evidence and in accordance with law."
(Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry v. United States, Slip Op. 25-122, CIT # 22-00190, dated 09/15/25; Judge: Jennifer Choe-Groves; Attorneys: Stephen Brophy of Husch Blackwell for plaintiff Jinagsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry; Mark Ludwikowski of Clark Hill for plaintiff-intervenor Lumber Liquidators Services; Brett Shumate for defendant U.S. government; Timothy Brightbill of Wiley Rein for defendant-intervenor American Manufacturers of Multilayered Wood Flooring)