Antidumping duties, U.S. reviews could last indefinitely
By Heath E. Combs -- Furniture Today, May 21, 2007
High Point — Get used to antidumping duties and U.S. government reviews of Chinese-made wooden bedroom furniture. Chances are they'll be around for a while.
How long can they last? Indefinitely, according to George W. Thompson, a Washington attorney who focuses on international and domestic trade regulation.
U.S. International Trade Commission archives list about 280 open cases of antidumping or countervailing duties. More than 100 of those involve steel products. The oldest stretches back to October 1973 on rubber products from Japan.
Barring the unlikely scenario that domestic petitioners drop the dispute in the bedroom case, the U.S. government will conduct administrative reviews each year of the previous year's duty rates.
In 2010, there will be the first "sunset" review, a broad look at the duties and their effects on the domestic industry — roughly five years after the original order was issued on Jan. 4, 2005.
A sunset review is conducted by the ITC and U.S. Department of Commerce and determines if antidumping duties should remain in place based on business conditions in the foreign and domestic industries.
The sunset review has some of the same elements of the initial investigation, and considers competition between imports and domestic product, including import volume and market share, vulnerability of the U.S. industry to imports, and the price effect of imports.
During a sunset review, two key items must be shown for antidumping orders to continue. The ITC will determine whether revocation would lead to a recurrence of injury, while the Department of Commerce determines if revocation would lead to a recurrence of dumping.
Sunset reviews usually don't result in the revocation of orders, Thompson said. Of the 554 sunset reviews of dumping orders between 1998 and 2005, 59% were kept in place.
Under current law, antidumping duties paid by importers are collected by the U.S. government and then disbursed to the U.S. manufacturers that originally petitioned for the investigation. (Two other U.S. companies, Furniture Brands International and Standard Furniture, have filed suits seeking to receive disbursements as well.)
Congress has repealed the Byrd Amendment, which allows petitioners to collect duty disbursements, meaning that petitioners will only collect money on imports made until Oct. 1, 2007. After that, dumping monies will go to the U.S. Treasury.
Reviews of antidumping duties will overlap. Two administrative reviews are in process now, one covering imports from June 24, 2004, to Dec. 31, 2005, and a second covering 2006.
"We feel we will be looking at this each year for quite a while. I don't know what to expect beyond that," said Geoff Beaston, president and CEO of importer Fine Furniture Design & Marketing.
Beaston said the situation will be volatile for several years, and risky for importers. Most of the exposure to risk is that a review could lead to the retroactive application of higher duty rates than were initially established, forcing importers to pay more.
"You don't know what will be affected that you've already done. It's the unknown and it's a process that has a lot of caveats to it and you therefore need good legal counsel," he said.
Jake Jabs, CEO of retailer American Furniture Warehouse in Englewood, Colo., and an active importer, said there is still antagonism toward petitioners over the issue. He suspects nearly all big U.S. retailers opposed the duties. American has lost four of its best-selling bedroom groups to a 198% duty and Jabs said he believes it will lose three more groups.
He said he believes much of the incentive for continuing the antidumping order will go away once petitioners stop receiving Byrd Amendment disbursements.
"It has hurt us financially and has raised the price of goods to our consumers," he said.
