Sometimes, the furniture business is as full of foreign intrigue as a good spy movie. There are backroom deals, squabbling over loot, and all sorts of shenanigans. For example, the Byrd Amendment (the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act) was put in place in 2000 to deter countries like China from dumping cheap goods onto the American market. Furniture was among the products affected by this anti-dumping Act. Although this legislation has now been repealed, there is still a tidy sum in collected duties waiting to be distributed.

Who gets the money? According to U.S. Court of International Trade, the funds are to be distributed to American furniture companies that were affected by dumping. The catch is that only companies that supported the anti-dumping petition in the first place are eligible to benefit. Now, furniture companies that did not support the Byrd Amendment are clamoring for a share of the spoils anyway. They claim that it is unfair to penalize them for not marching in lock-step with the government in instituting the CDSOA when it was first proposed.

You can read more about the decision at Furniture Today. What do you think would be fair in this situation? Let us know in the comments.