Answering Dumping Questionnaires Just Got Harder

Feb. 3, 2026
By: David G. Forgue

Importers across huge swaths of the United States landscape have received questionnaires from the International Trade Commission in connection with antidumping or countervailing duty investigations. These questionnaires are regarded by the Commission as important baseline data collection when evaluating whether a United States industry has been injured.

While completing the questionnaires requires substantial data, responding companies could be assured that their entire response would be treated as confidential by ITC rule. This meant that no special designations had to be made and it was often not necessary to seek professional guidance to parse the confidentiality rules. On February 2, 2026 the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down the automatic confidentiality treatment, at least as it related to the Court of International Trade

The reasoning in the CAFC’s decision is interesting to people deeply immersed in a few different aspects of the controversy. However, the people most likely to be impacted by the decision are not the people interested in the reasoning, but United States importers (and analysts at the Commission). People interested in the common law right to see filings and statutory construction discussions should clink the link above.

As a practical matter, if importers are required to actually designate what material is confidential and cite support for the claim, as well as address any objections or questions about the treatment, the risk of exposing confidential material increases dramatically. This means that the rationale for voluntarily responding to a questionnaire becomes more challenging. While the Commission can use its subpoena power to compel responses, it is not clear whether the Commission has the resources to use this mechanism against many importers across many cases. Companies receiving questionnaires will need to consider all of these factors when they receive a questionnaire.

All of which is to say that answering an ITC questionnaire has very likely become more risky and more difficult. Whether that is a net good for the Commission, the administration of the law, or the common law right to see filings remains to be seen, but the attorneys at Barnes, Richardson & Colburn, LLP can help you evaluate the risk to your data of responding to an ITC questionnaire.