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Government distributes $11.7 million in antidumping duties

20 U.S. furniture manufacturers receive funds

Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, December 8, 2011

WASHINGTON — U.S. Customs and Border Protection has released nearly $11.7 million in monies collected from duties on Chinese made bedroom furniture.

The money is distributed to 20 U.S. furniture manufacturers under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, otherwise known as the Byrd Amendment. The $11.7 million figure was cited this week in a disbursement report for fiscal year 2011, which ended Sept. 30.

This act was repealed by Congress in 2005 due to concerns that supporters of antidumping cases were unfairly given proceeds of duties collected from competing overseas manufacturers. As a result, U.S. companies were no longer able to receive duties collected on products shipped to the U.S. market after October 2007. Those duties go to the U.S. Treasury.

The funds covered in the recent report are based on duties assigned and recently collected on shipments made prior to the 2007 deadline.

The antidumping duties are aimed at leveling the playing field for domestic producers that have been injured due to what the government considers unfairly priced imports.

Because it represents a shrinking amount of entries that are being liquidated, the $11.7 million pales compared to some previous years, when the duties distributed to U.S. bedroom manufacturers case were as high as $36 million. However, it is higher than the $7.5 million distributed last year.

The amounts distributed to petitioners, or domestic producers who supported the wooden bedroom furniture case are:

Bassett Furniture: $764,710
Bebe Furniture: $32,042
Carolina Furniture Works: $328,293
Century Furniture: $258,688
Harden Furniture: $60,860
Higdon Furniture: $275,539
Johnston Tombigbee Furniture: $569,875
Kincaid Furniture: $867,070
L. and J.G. Stickley: $385,755
Lea Inds.: $548,450
MJ Wood Products: $104,114
Mobel Inc.: $251,696
Oakwood Interiors: $240,374
Purdues Inc., DBA Purdues Woodworks: $303,807
Sandberg Furniture: $609,410
Stanley Furniture: $3,498,172
T Copeland and Sons: $115,404
Tom Seely Furniture: $56,878
Vaughan-Bassett Furniture: $2,233,763
Vermont Quality Wood Products/DBA Vermont Tubbs: $185,325

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is still holding back more than $150 million in duties that have been claimed in court actions by U.S. manufacturers including Furniture Brands International, Standard Furniture, Ashley Furniture and Ethan Allen, which did not support the antidumping case.

In court, they are challenging the CDSOA rule that only allows duties collected to be distributed to the petitioners who supported the case early on. A number of these and other manufacturers challenging this in court say that the rule violates their right to free speech by requiring them to come out in support of the antidumping initiative.

The $150 million that is being held back is based on figures culled from prior CDSOA disbursement reports. This year's report did not include a figure being held back in the furniture case for fiscal year 2011.

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Companies collect $11.7M in antidumping duties

Dec 13, 2011

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