History of Frozen Fish Fillets Being Dumped by Exporters, Petitioner Argues
In a statement of issues filed Nov. 24, petitioners Catfish Farmers of America again said their most recent case (see 2508200051) challenges the zero percent antidumping duty rate applied to all 2022-23 Vietnamese frozen fish fillet administrative review respondents (Catfish Farmers of America v. United States, CIT # 25-00156).
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The claim is based on 19 U.S.C. 1673d(c)(5), which instructs Commerce to exclude all zero percent and de minimis AD rates assigned to mandatory respondents when determining a rate for a review’s non-individually examined respondents, it said. In such cases, Commerce must use “any reasonable method” in calculating those non-selected respondents’ rate, it said.
It also said that the 2022-23 review’s record didn’t support Commerce’s determination, based on the sole mandatory respondent’s zero percent margin, that no respondents had dumped.
The non-selected respondents have “operations, cost structures, and pricing factors that are different from those of the sole mandatory respondent,” it said. And, further, it said, evidence shows that Vietnamese frozen fish fillet exporters have “consistent[ly]” dumped their product on U.S. markets.
For that reason, Commerce’s decision to use the mandatory respondent’s zero percent rate as the weighted average dumping margin for all other respondents was unreasonable, it argued.