The U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) has ruled in line with the U.S. Department of Commerce in denying a motion from the Coalition of American Millwork Producers that sought to implement anti-dumping duties on Brazilian wood mouldings and millwork products.

The United States began investigating wood moulding and millwork products from Brazil for anti-dumping action and duties in 2020 after determining they were being undersold against competing U.S. products, according to the Department of Commerce. The investigation did not result in anti-dumping orders as Commerce reached a negative determination after calculating a dumping margin of zero percent.

Commerce did, however, collapse the main three Brazilian companies involved into a single entity. Those companies are Araupel and Braslumber Industria de Molduras/BrasPine Madeiras.

On Wednesday, June 15, CIT Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sustained the final determination from the U.S. Department of Commerce, denying the millwork producers’ motion for judgment.

The coalition argued that prior instances of collapsing have shown more prominent indications of shared activity than were present in the case at hand. In her ruling, the judge found there was sufficient evidence to back the determination.

“The Court concludes that Commerce reasonably supported its collapsing determination based on substantial evidence on the record,” the judge wrote.

An additional ruling of note was the decision to not apply the major input rule to one of the company’s log purchases as it was not affiliated with the supplier. According to the judge, evidence cited in court documents shows that Araupel was not the supplier’s only customer, nor did Araupel source logs solely from the supplier dubbed “Company A.”

The judge also sustained previous Department of Commerce rulings to revise Araupel’s reported general and administrative expenses to account for fair value adjustments with respect to unharvested forests. Lastly, the court affirmed commerce’s selection of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s interest rate for the calculation of imputed credit expenses and inventory carrying costs.