International Court Remands Antidumping Case

Washington, DC, April 18, 2013 -- The Court of International Trade has remanded the antidumping case on Chinese engineered wood flooring back to the International Trade Commission, according to a press release from the Alliance for Free Choice and Jobs in Flooring.

The alliance has been fighting the imposition of tariffs on Chinese imports.

According to the release, the court said that the commission had done both an insufficient economic analysis and an incomplete review of the domestic industry when reaching its original decision and "thus the conclusion of material injury is not supported by substantial evidence."

The order outlined multiple areas where the court found "that the legal and factual analysis performed by the Commission in this instance misses the mark and thus the conclusion of material injury is not supported by substantial evidence."

In particular, the court determined that the ITC used too low a standard in determining that the imports cause any injury to the U.S. industry, the release noted.

Alliance President Jonathan Train said, "All the data clearly showed that imported flooring is a benefit to the industry as a whole and has not injured the Petitioners and we are not surprised that the CIT agreed with every issue we raised regarding the original decision." 

Train said the court noted that the Commission failed to appropriately consider the impact of a wide variety of economic factors including the overall economic conditions and available substitutions (be it laminate or LVT or imports from other countries).

In addition, he said, the court also questioned if the domestic industry was properly surveyed.