Chinese manufacturers retain law firm
By Powell Slaughter -- Furniture Today, September 8, 2003
High Point — A coalition of Chinese furniture manufacturers has engaged Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a Washington law firm loaded with former U.S. trade officials, to fight allegations they are dumping wood bedroom furniture in the U.S. market.
The Chinese Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Free Trade was formed recently to contest the antidumping petition that the Committee for Legal Trade, a group of 32 U.S. furniture manufacturers, will file this fall with the International Trade Commission.
"With the help of our legal experts at Wilmer, Cutler and full disclosure of the facts, we are confident the result will positively reflect our efforts," said Mohamad Amini, executive vice president of case goods manufacturer Lacquer Craft and a leader in organizing the Chinese response to the antidumping petition.
Leading the Wilmer, Cutler team are Charlene Barshefsky, former U.S. trade representative; Robert Novick, former general counsel to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; and John Greenwald, the first head of the U.S. Commerce Department's Import Administration, the agency responsible for administering U.S. antidumping law.
Greenwald said that the claim that China has materially injured the U.S. furniture industry when the U.S. industry itself is a major purchaser of imports from China is not credible, and that Chinese imports are not displacing U.S. production.
"China supplies U.S. demand that would otherwise be supplied from other exporting countries," Greenwald said. "Furthermore, the data we have seen do not show dumping. Rather, they show that Chinese producers have a natural competitive advantage in a very labor-intensive industry. The Wilmer, Cutler team and the Chinese industry are committed to doing everything necessary to challenge and disprove this unfounded dumping charge."
A list of key members of the Committee for Free Trade was not available by press time last week.
