Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. v. United States, 145 F.4th 1308

Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. ("Jilin"), a Chinese exporter of multilayered wood flooring, was subject to a Department of Commerce (Commerce) antidumping investigation, which treated China as a non-market economy (NME).
Commerce’s longstanding practice in NME cases is to presume all exporters are under government control and assign them a single antidumping duty rate, unless a company demonstrates independence (qualifying them for a "separate rate").
In earlier proceedings, Jilin obtained a separate, lower rate by rebutting the presumption of government control. However, in the fifth administrative review, Commerce found Jilin failed to rebut the presumption and assigned it the higher, PRC-wide rate (25.62%).
The Court of International Trade (CIT) held that applying the NME-wide rate to Jilin, a cooperative but unsuccessful respondent, was unlawful and required Commerce to calculate an individual rate for Jilin.
Commerce appealed, arguing precedent and regulation support their NME policy; the CIT’s decision was reversed on appeal by the Federal Circuit.

Issue	Jilin's Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Lawfulness of applying country-wide NME rate to a cooperative but unsuccessful respondent	Uncodified NME policy lacks explicit statutory/regulatory support, and violates the requirement for individual rates	NME policy is supported by existing regulations and precedent; assigning a single NME-wide rate is permitted	Commerce may assign the NME-wide rate to a cooperative respondent who fails to rebut the presumption
Whether NME presumption must be subject to notice-and-comment rulemaking	NME presumption is a legislative rule subject to APA rulemaking requirements	NME presumption is an evidentiary presumption, not a legislative rule; APA requirements do not apply	NME presumption is a valid factual inference, not requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking
Whether prior Federal Circuit case law controls the outcome	No binding precedent on this exact fact pattern	CMA and prior cases establish binding precedent supporting NME policy	Prior cases are binding; Commerce's NME policy is lawful
Rationality of NME presumption	No rational basis for presuming control absent specific evidence	Statute recognizes government control as a key NME factor; presumption is rational	Presumption is rational, given statutory factors and evidence

Sigma Corp. v. United States, 117 F.3d 1401 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (approved Commerce’s authority to presume state control in NME cases and place burden on exporters)
Transcom, Inc. v. United States, 294 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (upheld use of NME presumption and single NME-wide rate)
Changzhou Wujin Fine Chem. Factory Co. v. United States, 701 F.3d 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (applied Sigma approach)
Michaels Stores, Inc. v. United States, 766 F.3d 1388 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (followed precedent on NME-wide rate policy)
Dongtai Peak Honey Indus. Co. v. United States, 777 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (endorsed NME presumption)
Albemarle Corp. & Subsidiaries v. United States, 821 F.3d 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (affirmed methodology for NME respondent rates)
Changzhou Hawd Flooring Co. v. United States, 848 F.3d 1006 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (reaffirmed Commerce’s discretion in NME reviews)
Diamond Sawblades Mfrs. Coal. v. United States, 866 F.3d 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (upheld NME entity rate application)
Zhejiang Mach. Imp. & Exp. Corp. v. United States, 65 F.4th 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2023) (continued support for NME-wide rate policy)
China Manufacturers Alliance, LLC v. United States, 1 F.4th 1028 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (held that NME-wide rate may apply to cooperative but unsuccessful respondents)