CIT Denies Exporter's Bid to Add Data File to Record in AD Case on Paper Plates
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 19 denied exporter Fuzhou Hengli Paper Co.'s bid to add an Excel data file to the record in the company's case against the antidumping duty investigation on Chinese paper plates. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves held that Fuzhou Hengli failed to adhere to the Commerce Department's procedures, since the company only filed its submission "on the one-day lag system on a temporary basis in connection with the barcode of the non-final rebuttal brief" and never re-filed the submission "after one business day with the final rebuttal brief."
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Commerce's "one-day lag" rule keeps submissions that involve "business proprietary treatment" on hold for "one business day after the filing date," though the submitting party must file the "complete final business proprietary document" with the agency one business day after the business proprietary document is filed.
Fuzhou Hengli brought its case to contest Commerce's use of adverse facts available against it in the investigation due to alleged insufficiencies in the respondent's submissions regarding the "commingling" of paperboard inputs (see 2511190052). The agency said "Fuzhou Hengli grouped multiple 'basis-weights' of the paperboard input folding box board together, rather than reporting each [folding box board] basis-weight as a separate and distinct [factor of production]" as requested.
The respondent said it submitted the Excel data file at issue administratively, and that it shows only minor differences between its reporting method and the method Commerce required. Fuzhou Hengli then tried to add the file to the record before the trade court, which the U.S. contested on the grounds that it wasn't properly submitted according to the agency's procedures.
Choe-Groves agreed, finding that since the respondent failed to re-file the exhibit the day after filing the business proprietary version of the document, "Fuzhou filed its final rebuttal brief without an attached exhibit and the exhibit was never formally placed on the administrative record."
The court noted that on ACCESS, when a submitting party means to associate a data file with another document, "the barcode of the associated document should be indicated in the 'comments' field of the submission to properly link both submissions." Fuzhou Hengli only linked the data file to its non-final rebuttal brief. Thus, it erred by "associating the exhibit with a submission that the ACCESS system considered non-final," Choe-Groves said.
Fuzhou Hengli said it properly "presented" the exhibit to Commerce by filing it on ACCESS, qualifying the exhibit as information that should be included in the administrative record. Choe-Groves said the agency didn't abuse its discretion in finding the respondent failed to properly file the exhibit according to Commerce's procedures.
(Fuzhou Hengli Paper Co. v. United States, Slip Op. 25-159, CIT # 25-00064, dated 12/19/25; Judge: Jennifer Choe-Groves; Attorneys: Eugene Degnan of Morris Manning for plaintiff Fuzhou Hengli Paper Co.; Collin Mathias for defendant U.S. government; Adam Gordon of The Bristol Group for defendant-intervenor American Paper Plate Coalition)