The U.S. Department of Commerce imposed its final antidumping rate for Double Coin’s OTR tires at 105.31%. Double Coin and CMA believe that this final antidumping rate, which is identical to the DOCpreliminary finding, is “grossly wrong,” the company said.
The DOC said, Double Coin “failed to demonstrate absence of de facto government control over export activities due to the fact that its controlling shareholder is wholly-owned by the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council” and therefore falls under the People’s Republic of China antidumping duty rate of 105.31%
Believing the rate is unjust, Double Coin and CMA are actively preparing for an appeal, according to Aaron Murphy, vice president of CMA.
“We believe that Double Coin has a very strong case for appealing the final determination to the Court of International Trade,” said Dan Porter of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, lead counsel for CMA’s review of the antidumping rates. Porter explained, “The Commerce Department made this decision entirely because CMA’s largest shareholder (Double Coin) is a publically traded company in China whose largest stockholder (Huayi) is a state-owned company. The Commerce Department assumed that this state-owned company influenced CMA’s U.S. sales of Double Coin tires. However, Commerce Department’s own investigation confirmed that CMA alone determines the U.S. selling prices for Double Coin’s OTR tires and because of this fact, the Commerce Department’s legal conclusion that the Chinese government controls Double Coin’s export activities is both wrong and unlawful.”
The DOC started its anti-dumping review in October 2013 to determine whether the antidumping rate assigned to Double Coin and CMA should be changed. It released its preliminary findings in October 2014.
