The Court of International Trade has blocked a decision by the United States Department of Commerce to impose a 4.78 percent antidumping duty rate on imports of Vietnamese shrimp.
According to the 21 June ruling, which came in response to an appeal filed by the Soc Trang Seafood Joint Stock Company (Stapimex) and the Mazzetta Company, a major importer of Vietnamese warmwater shrimp, the Department of Commerce must reconsider its conclusions from its 10th administrative review of Vietnamese imports, which covers warmwater shrimp imported between 1 February, 2014, and 31 January, 2015.
Specifically, the court challenged the DOC’s use of import data from Bangladesh as a surrogate valuation market. The court also asked that the DOC further explain its policy of excluding packaging as a byproduct.
The Southern Shrimp Alliance, which participated in the appeal as a defendant-intervenor in support of the DOC’s decision, issued a statement following the ruling saying many of its arguments had been accepted by the court.
“Although it reversed Commerce’s action on these two grounds, the Court rejected the vast majority of the Vietnamese shrimp exporters’ complaints,” the SSA said. “The Court again upheld Commerce’s methodology for calculating dumping margins in the face of the exporters’ broad attack. The Court also rejected demands from the Vietnamese exporters that documents related to the U.S. government’s settlement of the Vietnamese government’s dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization be placed on a public record. The Court further affirmed Commerce’s methodology for assigning antidumping duty margin rates to companies that were not individually reviewed and rejected the exporters’ arguments challenging Commerce’s selection of surrogate values for head and shell byproducts and ice.”
The DOC has 60 days to respond to the court’s ruling.
In March 2018, the DOC issued preliminary results of its 12th administrative review of its antidumping order on frozen warmwater shrimp from Vietnam, calculating an expected antidumping rate of 25.39 percent. The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers expressed shock at the rate and have challenged it, calling for the “mistake” to be reviewed.
