CVD Respondent Moves to Toss Case Over Late Submissions
Countervailing duty respondent Zhejiang Zhouli Industrial moved on Jan. 11 to dismiss its case at the Court of International Trade over late-submitted questionnaire responses in a countervailing duty investigation (Zhejiang Zhouli Industrial v. United States, CIT # 22-00177).
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Zhouli served as a mandatory respondent in a case concerning the CVD investigation on walk-behind snow throwers and parts thereof from China. The deadline was Oct. 18 to submit all the questionnaire responses after Commerce, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, issued a questionnaire in place of on-site verification. Counsel for Zhouli mistakenly thought the deadline was Oct. 19. Alerted to this mistake "shortly before" the Oct. 18 5 p.m. deadline, the attorney contacted the Commerce program manager and left a message requesting Commerce accept the filing, "which would be made within the next hour." Counsel for Zhouli told the trade court all the submissions were within 30 minutes of the 5 p.m. Oct. 18 deadline (see 2207220038).
Commerce rejected the submissions for being late and because no extension request was filed. Zhouli appealed, arguing that rejection of the responses was an extreme measure since the filings were only 30 minutes late. The respondent again faced rejection from the agency. The result was an AFA rate of 203.06%. Counsel for Zhouli did not comment on why it asked for the case to be dismissed.