Recently, the renowned legal rating agency LegalOne announced its annual "LegalOne Merits" awards. The case "U.S. Antidumping Investigation and Administrative Reviews of Citric Acid from Thailand," handled by the international trade team led by Mr. Guan Jian, Managing Partner of Beijing Grandwin Law Firm, has received a LegalOne Merits (Exemplary) rating.

This marks another authoritative honor for the team, following the "Turkey – Antidumping Investigation on Hot-Rolled Products from China" and "Chile – Antidumping Investigation on Steel Grinding Balls and Steel Bars for Grinding Balls from China" cases, signifying that Grandwin's professional strength in handling global trade remedy investigations continues to be highly recognized.

Grandwin sincerely thanks all clients for their trust and support, as well as media organizations and industry peers for their recognition and high praise of Grandwin's legal service capabilities. In the future, we will take this honor as motivation, consistently providing clients with professional, comprehensive, high-quality and efficient legal services, and fully safeguarding our clients' rights and interests.

Case Overview

This case involves the U.S. antidumping investigation and subsequent multiple rounds of administrative reviews of citric acid products from Thailand. The United States is the world's largest citric acid import market (with an annual scale of approximately USD 1.2 billion), and has conducted antidumping and countervailing duty investigations against China, Thailand and other countries since 2000. Thailand is an important base for Chinese citric acid enterprises under the Belt and Road Initiative. Both local Thai enterprises and Chinese-invested enterprises have long been engaged in exporting to the U.S. market, making Chinese-invested enterprises in Thailand a key focus of attention for U.S. authorities.

Since being retained in 2019, Mr. Guan Jian has represented the Thai citric acid industry throughout the original antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, and subsequently handled multiple consecutive annual administrative reviews. In the original investigation, Mr. Guan and his team formulated response strategies, submitted legal defenses, and successfully secured a relatively low antidumping duty rate for the client while prompting the U.S. to terminate the countervailing duty investigation. From 2020 to 2024, they achieved "zero duty" rates in five consecutive rounds of administrative reviews. In 2025, the client continued to retain Mr. Guan's team for legal services, and in February 2026, the U.S. Federal Register published the results of a new round of review, once again successfully obtaining a "zero duty" rate, achieving a clean sweep in six consecutive rounds of reviews.

The key highlight of this case is that over a six-year sustained legal battle, they achieved "zero duty" rates in six consecutive rounds of administrative reviews, completely avoiding punitive tariffs of 10% to 30% faced by the industry, thereby helping the client preserve and maximize their commercial interests in the U.S., the world's largest citric acid market.

Profile of Grandwin International Trade Team

The International Trade Team of Beijing Grandwin Law Firm is led by partner Mr. Guan Jian. The team has extensive experience and an outstanding track record in representing and assisting the Chinese government, industry associations, and Chinese enterprises in responding to foreign trade remedy cases against China. It has successively represented and participated in nearly 100 trade remedy cases initiated by the EU, the United States, Canada and other countries or regions, covering a wide range of industries such as steel, chemicals, textiles, food, biology, pharmaceuticals, electronics, daily necessities, solar energy, automobiles, and telecommunications. Clients include leading enterprises in the industry, such as Shougang Group, Wuhan Iron and Steel, Taiyuan Iron and Steel, Xingcheng Special Steel, Suntech, Huawei, ABB, COFCO, and CIMC.