RESTANI, Judge.
This matter comes before the court following the court's decisions in Lifestyle Enterprise, Inc. v. United States, 768 F.Supp.2d 1286 (CIT 2011) ("Lifestyle I"), in which the court remanded Wooden Bedroom Furniture from the People's Republic of China: Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review and New Shipper Reviews, 74 Fed.Reg. 41,374 (Dep't Commerce Aug. 17, 2009) ("Final Results") to the U.S. Department of Commerce ("Commerce" or the "Department") and Lifestyle Enterprise, Inc. v. United States, 844 F.Supp.2d 1283 (CIT 2012) ("Lifestyle II"), in which the court remanded Final Results of Redetermination Pursuant to Remand (Dep't Commerce Aug. 26, 2011) (Docket No. 132) ("First Remand Results") to Commerce. For the reasons stated below, the court finds that Commerce complied with the court's remand instructions with regard to the selection of the surrogate value for wood input, but Commerce has not complied with the court's remand instructions regarding Orient's AFA rate. Thus, Commerce's Second
The facts of this case have been well-documented in the court's previous opinions. See Lifestyle I, 768 F.Supp.2d at 1293-95; Lifestyle II, 844 F.Supp.2d at 1286-87. The court presumes familiarity with these decisions but briefly summarizes the facts relevant to this opinion.
The plaintiffs, Lifestyle Enterprise, Inc. ("Lifestyle"), Orient International Holding Shanghai Foreign Trade Co., Ltd. ("Orient"), Guangdong Yihua Timber Industry Co., Ltd. ("Yihua Timber"), Dream Rooms Furniture (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Ron's Warehouse Furniture, Emerald Home Furnishings, LLC, and Trade Masters of Texas, Inc., and intervenor defendants American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade and Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Company, Inc. (collectively "AFMC") challenged the Final Results of an administrative review of the antidumping ("AD") duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from the People's Republic of China ("PRC" or "China"), which assigned Orient a weighted average dumping margin
In the Second Remand Results, Commerce chose not to reopen the record and recalculated the valuation of wood inputs using NSO volume-based data. Second Remand Results 1, 7. Commerce also calculated a new AFA rate of 130.81% for Orient. Id. at 9. Plaintiff Lifestyle challenges Commerce's determination regarding Orient's AFA rate. Cmts. of Lifestyle Enterprise, Inc., Trade Masters of Texas, Inc. and Emerald Home Furnishings, LLC on Department of Commerce June 11, 2012 Final Results of Redetermination Pursuant to Second Remand 12 ("Lifestyle Cmts."). Yihua Timber challenges Commerce's use of NSO volume-based data to value wood inputs.
The court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1581(c). The court will not uphold Commerce's final determination in an AD review if it is "unsupported by substantial evidence on the record, or otherwise not in accordance with law...." 19 U.S.C. § 1516a(b)(1)(B)(i).
Lifestyle argues that Orient's AFA rate was not reasonably reflective of Orient's commercial reality, punitive, and "aberrantly high and egregiously out of line with the rate calculated for Yihua [Timber], a comparable company." Lifestyle Cmts. 8-9, 11. Specifically, Lifestyle contends that Commerce used an insufficient percentage of Yihua Timber's sales, yielding an excessively high AFA rate.
If an interested party has failed to cooperate in not providing valid data upon which Commerce can calculate an AD
In the draft Second Remand Results, Commerce calculated a new AFA rate for Orient based on Yihua Timber's revised dumping margin of 40.74% and "added an additional amount to ensure compliance by only selecting Yihua Timber's sales transactions that produced positive margins," thereby assigning Orient an AFA rate of 46.53%. Second Remand Results 1, 8. After the draft results, Commerce "determined that the 46.53 percent rate [was] not sufficiently adverse to provide respondents with an incentive to cooperate." Id. at 8 (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted). Commerce is likely not incorrect in this regard. The next step is more problematic. In the final Second Remand Results, Commerce examined an invoice from Orient's section A questionnaire response, which Orient had not withdrawn. Id. Commerce then selected CONNUM-specific margins for Yihua Timber's sales of the same product types sold by Orient as reflected in the invoice, selected the highest specific margin for each of Yihua Timber's products (excluding margins over 216%), and then averaged those margins together for an AFA rate of 130.81%.
Lifestyle also alleges that Commerce engaged in a "closed-door session with counsel to the AFMC," "gave no warning to the parties" prior to the final results, "did an about face," and "did not provide parties with an opportunity to file" comments after the final Second Remand Results.
Lastly, Commerce has ignored the court's remand instructions in Lifestyle I and Lifestyle II. Commerce failed to comply with the court's remand order because Commerce did not follow the court's direction that Commerce "should start with the highest rate calculated for a comparable respondent or respondents and then add an additional amount to ensure compliance." Lifestyle II, 844 F.Supp.2d at 1291 n. 13. Additionally, Commerce still has not explained why Orient's rate increased so dramatically from its prior margin. See Lifestyle I, 768 F.Supp.2d at 1299; Lifestyle II, 844 F.Supp.2d at 1290. "When rates are in multiples of 100%, one might assume that a bit more corroboration or record support is warranted." Qingdao Taifa Grp., Co. v. United States, 760 F.Supp.2d 1379, 1386 n. 7 (CIT 2010) ("Taifa III"). Commerce explained that "some relationship between the AFA rate and the actual dumping margin," Lifestyle II, 844 F.Supp.2d at 1291, was shown because "it is: a) contemporaneous (i.e., from the instant review), b) from a `comparable' respondent based on the information on the record, and c) based on sales of the same types of merchandise sold by Orient during the same period." Second Remand Results at 16. If this was all the court required, then the percentage of sales and those sales' relationship to commercial reality for this respondent would be wholly irrelevant. But this is not the case and Commerce must show more. The use of contemporaneous data, particularly where data are cherry-picked and manipulated, does not obviate the necessity of Commerce to provide substantial evidence of a rational relationship between the AFA rate chosen and the commercial reality of the non-cooperating respondent. On the facts of this case, a distorted rate based on a very small percentage of a comparable company's like-product sales does not meet this threshold.
Because Commerce's task is to identify the amount necessary to deter noncompliance, Commerce must look at the relationship between the AFA rate granted in the current administrative review and the rate of past and present cooperating respondents of comparable size. Gallant, 602 F.3d at 1324. Absent record evidence to the contrary, the difference between these rates and the AFA rate is the deterrent. Where the AFA rate is multiples of the baseline, this indicates that the rate may not be supported by substantial evidence. See De Cecco, 216 F.3d at 1032. An AFA rate over 100%
"Commerce need not select, as the AFA rate, a rate that represents the typical dumping margin for the industry in question." KYD, 607 F.3d at 765-66. But Commerce must select an AFA rate that has not been artificially constructed for the sole purpose of punishing a non-compliant respondent. By selecting a very small number of the highest product-specific margins from a different respondent, Commerce appears to have done just that. Thus Commerce's determination that Orient should receive an AFA rate of 130.81% is not supported by substantial evidence.
Yihua Timber argues that Commerce erred when it did not consider two alternatives to NSO volume-based data to value certain wood inputs. Yihua Timber Cmts. 2. No other party challenges Commerce's decision to use NSO volume-based data over WTA weight-based data in the Second Remand Results, and Yihua Timber's challenge is too late. Therefore, the court sustains Commerce's determination on this issue.
A party has waived an argument where it does not present the argument "until after it ha[s] filed its principal summary judgment brief ... [because] parties must give a trial court a fair opportunity to rule on an issue...." Novosteel SA v. United States, 284 F.3d 1261, 1274 (Fed.Cir.2002); KYD, Inc. v. United States, 836 F.Supp.2d 1410, 1414 n. 2 (CIT 2012). "[A]ll claims, arguments, and objections that [a plaintiff has] elected not to address in its post-remand briefs must be deemed waived." Bond Street, Ltd. v. United States, 774 F.Supp.2d 1251, 1261 n. 4 (CIT 2011).
In 2009, prior to the Final Results, Yihua Timber argued that Commerce should not rely on NSO volume-based data to calculate the surrogate values for various wood inputs, as Commerce had done in the Preliminary Results. Issues and Decision Memorandum for the Antidumping Duty Administrative and New Shipper Reviews of Wooden Bedroom Furniture from the People's Republic of China, A-570-890, POR 1/1/07-12/31/07, at 7 (Aug. 10, 2009) ("Issues and Decision Memorandum"), available at http://ia.ita.doc.gov/frn/summary/prc/E9-19666-1.pdf (last visited Aug. 27, 2012). Yihua Timber also argued that Commerce should not use Philippine Harmonized Tariff Schedule ("HTS") codes to value lumber and plywood. Id. Instead, Yihua Timber proposed that Commerce use domestic market data from the Philippines Forest and Management Bureau, export data from the United States to the Philippines, or export data from the United States to the PRC. Id. Yihua Timber had placed WTA weight-based data on the record in 2008 and also proposed using NSO weight-based data which it considered "substantially the same as the Philippine import data published in the World Trade Atlas...." Case Br. of Guangdong Yihua Timber Indus. Co., Ltd. (May 28, 2009), P.R. 557, at 12; Yihua Timber's Submission of Surrogate Factor Values (Nov. 4, 2008), P.R. 403, Ex. 1, at 1. Commerce rejected NSO volume-based data and also declined to use any of Yihua Timber's proposed alternatives. Issues
Yihua Timber now argues that Commerce should adopt Philippine volume-based domestic market data based on species indigenous to the Philippines or export prices from the United States to the Philippines. Yihua Timber Cmts. 2. Specifically, Yihua Timber argues that NSO volume-based data are inferior to domestic data and export data because NSO data relies on HTS basket categories and reflects the use of a standard conversion ratio. Id. at 2-3. Yihua Timber argues that domestic data are superior in particular because Commerce has a preference for domestic over import data. Id. at 2. First, the domestic data for which Yihua Timber now argues were likely more favorable to the plaintiffs than WTA weight-based data.
For reasons stated in its prior opinion, Lifestyle II, 844 F.Supp.2d at 1292-97, the court sustains Commerce's decision to value wood inputs using NSO volume-based data.
For the foregoing reasons, Commerce's determination to value certain wood inputs using NSO volume-based data is sustained. Commerce's decision to grant an AFA rate of 130.81% to Orient is remanded.
Commerce shall file its remand determination with the court within 60 days of this date. The parties have 30 days thereafter to file objections, and the Government will have 15 days thereafter to file its response.
The AFA rate is based on [[Confidential Data Deleted]] of Yihua Timber's sales by value and [[Confidential Data Deleted]] of Yihua Timber's sales by quantity. Lifestyle Cmts. Ex. 1, at 3. Products yielded different proportions. For example, [[Confidential Data Deleted]] sales by quantity. See Analysis Memorandum for the Final Redetermination Pursuant to Remand: Orient Int'l (June 11, 2012), AFMC App., Tab 5, Attach. II. at 6.