June 17, 2004: DOC Preliminary Determination

The Department of Commerce ("DOC") will make a "preliminary determination" of dumping. It will be announced the next day on June 18 and published a few days thereafter. All imports from China will be covered by an affirmative determination except for imports from individual Chinese companies with zero or de minimis margins (less than 2.0%). This means that imports will still be permitted, but the "importer of record" will be required to post a surety bond for each entry and those entries will be subject to a dumping duty to be calculated in the future, i.e., potential liability for dumping duties begins. The surety bond will be in an amount equal to the dumping margin multiplied by the export price. This is an estimate of the actual dumping duties which will be determined at the administrative reviews (described below).

There are three (3) different categories of dumping margins:

1. Company-Specific Margin. For the seven mandatory respondents, DOC will calculate separate estimated dumping duty rates. The seven mandatory companies are:

1. Shing Mark Enterprises Co., Ltd.
2. Markor International Furniture (Tianjin) Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
3. Lacquer Craft Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
4. Rui Feng Woodwork (Dongguan) Co., Ltd.
5. Dongguan Lung Dong Furniture Co., Ltd.
6. Tech Lane Wood Mfg.
7. Starcorp Furniture (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

2. Weighted Average Margin. For those Chinese companies that DOC does not grant “separate” rate status, DOC will assign an “all other rate,” which is based on the weighted average for the mandatory respondents. Mandatory respondents with zero or de minimis margins (less than 2.0%) or, those mandatory respondents with a “facts available rate” (non-compliance rate), are excluded from the calculation of the weighted average that is applied to those companies that DOC grants separate rate status. In the preliminary determination itself, DOC will publish the list of separate rate companies.

3. Country-Wide Margin. For all other Chinese companies, the rate will be a "country-wide" rate, which is likely to be extremely high — possibly as high as the rates requested in the Petition.
 

July 2004: ITC Questionnaire

The ITC will send questionnaires to domestic producers, importers, purchasers and foreign producers. Information in the responses provides the empirical basis for the Commission's analysis of "material injury," causation and threat. It is important for all recipients to cooperate with the ITC.

November 1, 2004: DOC Final Determination

DOC will make its final determination, which will be made public on November 2. If the rates are different from the preliminary determination, DOC will adjust the surety bond rates. These adjustments could be up or down.

November 2 or 3: ITC Hearing

ITC public hearing will take place in Washington. Witnesses will include domestic producers, importers and purchasers such as retail stores.

Mid December: ITC Final Determination

If the ITC makes an affirmative determination, DOC will require cash deposits instead of surety bonds on each entry. The cash deposit will be calculated on a Chinese company by Chinese company basis. These cash deposit rates will be in effect until individual Chinese companies undergo an administrative review. If no one requests a review in December 2005, the deposits will become the assessed duties and duties must be paid on entries covered by the surety bond. The cash deposit rate continues each year for at least 5 years.
 

Administrative Reviews

Respondent Selection

If an antidumping order is issued, each year interested parties will have an opportunity to request an administrative review during the anniversary month of the order. Petitioners can request a review of a foreign producer / exporter, each foreign producer / exporter can request a review of itself, and each importer can request a review of a foreign producer / exporter that producers or exports the products imported by that importer. In most cases, DOC will conduct reviews of all foreign producers / exporters on which reviews have been requested, but the right to a review is not guaranteed. In cases in which reviews have been requested on a large number of foreign producers / exporters, which is likely to be the case for the furniture reviews, DOC will limit the number of reviews that it conducts based on the resources that it has available to conduct the reviews. The respondent selection for administrative reviews in such cases is conducted similarly to the respondent selection that DOC conducted in the investigation — DOC could choose a random sample of the producers, but is much more likely to simply choose a certain number of the largest producers on which reviews have been requested, in descending order (whether a review was requested by the petitioners, the producer itself, or an importer does not affect whether a producer is selected). The number of companies selected is likely to be slightly larger than the number selected in the investigation, but will remain relatively modest. DOC will certainly not review 50 foreign producers. DOC has wide discretion in choosing the number based on its "available resources."

Purpose of Reviews — Retroactive Assessment of Duties

The purposes of the administrative reviews are: (1) to retroactively calculate the actual duties for each company for the period covered by the review; and (2) to set the cash deposit rate for the company going forward. If the company is reviewed, the dumping margin calculated in the review will be the assessment rate for all entries that were made during the period of review (the importer could either owe additional duties or receive a refund of excess duty deposits made during the period of review). If a company is not selected for a review, or a review is not requested of that company, all entries during the period of review will be liquidated at the cash deposit rate (in other words, the importer will neither receive any refunds nor owe any additional duties), and the deposit rate for that producer will not change.

Timing

The first period of review will run from the date of the DOC preliminary determination ( June 17, 2004 ) until the end of the month prior to the one-year anniversary of the dumping order (November 2005). The reviews normally take 18 months to complete. In other words, DOC will not issue the results of its first administrative reviews until May 2007. No antidumping duty deposits would be refunded until after that.

Each later review will cover a one-year period beginning in December and ending in November, and will also normally take 18 months to complete.