Amazing Race: CBSA Edition:
Completing Antidumping RFIs
In Less Than 30 Days

September 5, 2016

When the Canada Border Services Agency initiates an antidumping case in Canada, they send the Dumping RFIs to exporters and foreign producers identified by the complaining domestic producer by snail mail. These important packages take many days to reach their destination – while the clock is ticking on the firm deadline.  The exporters and foreign producers must gather their resources to quickly start to complete the RFI.

We have a number of recommendations to help exporters and foreign producers to work quickly in gathering hundreds of pages of information (much of which must be translated into English or French).

  1. Put together a team because one person cannot do all the work.  An efficient team will include people from various roles and departments within the organization.  We recommend:
  • A director of the company;
  • Someone from the legal department;
  • Someone from the IT Department – who can create excel spreadsheets and pull information from sales and production records;
  • The domestic sales manager (a senior official in charge of sales of the subject goods within the home country);
  • The sales person who is responsible for Canada and who knows about all sales of the subject goods to Canada;
  • A senior official in the finance department who can assist with providing all the financial information; and
  • An English speaking employee to work with outside counsel and also be ready to host the CBSA during the verification.
  1. Create a schedule for completion of parts of the Dumping RFI. Take 2 hours to review the Dumping RFI and develop a plan.  This is the best way to ensure that the work is completed with a day or two for couriering the completed Dumping RFI to the CBSA. Early is better than late.
  2. Review the Dumping RFI and answer the easy questions on the first day.  It is possible to complete 50% of the written answers in the first few days.
  3. Go through the Dumping RFI with a Yellow highlighter and mark all of the questions asking for flow charts.  Prepare those flow charts on the second day after receiving the Dumping RFI.
  4. Go through the Dumping RFI with a Blue highlighter and mark all of the questions asking for documents (e.g., articles of incorporation, corporate structure, lists of shareholders, organizational charts, sample transactions, specifications, charts of accounts, annual reports, financial statements, income statements, profit and loss statements, etc.).  Assign the retrieval of the documents to the appropriate person.  For example, the domestic sales manager should gather the 12 domestic sales transactions. Ensure all documents are provided in original form and are translated.
  5. Arrange a translator to start working as soon as possible to translate documents into English;
  6. Carefully review the Appendices with the IT department.  Get them working to pull from the electronic accounting records all the information requested by the CBSA.  This information is the most difficult to gather.
  7. As each document is gathered and translated, identify the document with reference to the question in the RFI.  If a document is provided in response to question D1, the document should be marked Exhibit D1.  This makes it easy to organize the documents.
  8. As each document is finalized, any confidential documents should be stamped “Confidential” and each page should be numbered.
  9. As you write the Dumping RFI answers, know that the public version will be viewed by the Canadian domestic industry.  Make sure to identify confidential information from the very beginning of the preparation.

If you require more information about Canada’s antidumping laws, please contact Cyndee Todgham Cherniak at 416-307-4168 or cyndee@lexsage.com.

We have many useful articles at http://www.lexsage.com/free-information

Such as: 

Call Report
Top 10 Mistakes Made By Foreign Producers/Exporters When Completing CBSA Subsidy RFIs
Top 10 Mistakes Made By Foreign Producers/Exporters When Completing CBSA Dumping RFIs
Who Is The Exporter For Special Import Measures Act (SIMA) Purposes

This article was originally published on www.Canada-USBlog.com. Republished with permission.

*LexSage Professional Corporation is approved by the Law Society of Upper Canada