2 more companies file suits seeking duties

Heath E. Combs — Furniture Today,
ARCHBOLD, Ohio — Case goods manufacturer and importer Progressive Furniture filed a suit last week seeking antidumping monies, but the CEO of its parent company said today the suit will be withdrawn.
A similar action by manufacturer Thornwood Furniture, however, appears to remain active.


The suits are similar to ones Furniture Brands International and Standard Furniture filed earlier against the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. International Trade Commission. The companies are seeking a share of the antidumping duties the U.S. government has collected from importers of wood bedroom furniture from China.
Currently, those funds are distributed only to the U.S. companies that originally petitioned the government to investigate Chinese producers for dumping, or selling goods at below reasonable cost. Progressive, Thornwood, Furniture Brands and Standard were not among the petitioners.
Kevin Sauder, president and CEO of ready-to-assemble giant Sauder Woodworking, parent company of Progressive, said today that the company will withdraw the suit it filed on May 22 in the Court of International Trade.
Progressive, like Furniture Brands and Standard, had begun to explore its options last year to seek a cut of the antidumping monies. But for Progressive to seek a share of the funds when it imports more than half of its bedroom line “makes no sense,” Sauder said.
“Of course our Claremont (N.C.) factory is being hurt by Chinese imports. But our corporate bottom line is also being helped by them. I never thought this suit smelled right, and I still don’t,” he said.
 
Progressive began filing claims on the money last year through the U.S. Department of Commerce and with Customs, which distributes antidumping disbursements. Its claims were either denied or got no response.
Customs distributed $21.9 million in funds last year to the petitioners. This year, the agency listed $57 million in preliminary funds available as of April.
In its lawsuit, Progressive had claimed it was a victim of discrimination. It argued that even though it was similar to companies receiving the money, it was denied disbursement status because it didn’t support the 2003 antidumping petition. That amounted to a denial of the company’s free speech rights and equal protection under the law, the suit said.
Phoenix-based Thornwood made a similar argument in a suit it filed in March, saying that “(o)n its face, the antidumping law is so overbroad because it may compel speech in violation of the First Amendment.”
On May 18, the ITC responded that Thornwood was too late in filing its claim.
Thornwood officials did not return phone calls to Furniture/Today.
In the FBI and Thornwood cases, attorneys for Vaughan-Bassett and the petitioners’ group, the American Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade, filed intervenor defendant motions, making them a party to the action. 
Associate Editor Thomas Russell contributed to this story.