US court rejects Indian shrimp exporters appeal of anti-dumping duties

Indian vannamei. Credit: CambayTiger

A US trade court has rejected Indian shrimp exporters’ appeals of two US Department of Commerce determinations, which imposed anti-dumping duties on frozen warm water shrimp from India.

The decisions, filed July 12, uphold duties on Apex Frozen Foods and a host of other Indian shrimp companies, among them Devi Fisheries, Blue Park Seafoods and Avanti Feeds.

During the eighth administrative review — the more recent of the two reviews upheld — Devi Fisheries received a 1.97% duty for entries between Feb. 1, 2012 and Jan. 31, 2012.

Falcon Marine Exports received a 3.01% duty for the same time period, while Apex and other companies received a 2.49% duty.

The decision aims to protect domestic industries from goods sold at less than fair value.

Apex and the other plaintiffs had challenged the methodology used by commerce to calculate the anti-dumping duty—an argument the court rejected.

The purpose of the duty is to protect domestic industries from goods sold at less than fair value.

“Sales at less than fair value are those sales for which the ‘normal value’ (the price a producer charges in its home market) exceeds the ‘export price’ (the price of the product in the United States)…” says the court’s July 12 decision rejecting the appeal, citing the court case Union Steel v. United States, 2013.