Duties Revoked for Two Thai Companies

Over the strenuous objections of the SSA, the United States Trade Representative ordered that antidumping duties on two large Thai shrimp exporters be revoked as of January 16, 2009. The revocation of the antidumping order with respect to the Rubicon Group and Thai I-Mei was based on a decision by Commerce to recalculate the amount of dumping in the U.S. market by Thai shrimp exporters using a methodology highly favorable to exporters in response to an adverse World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel ruling.
Other available methodologies that may have kept antidumping duties in place could have been used, but Commerce chose to reject them. Commerce’s rationale for overlooking other acceptable calculations was that it claimed to have insufficient time; however, the ruling was issued months before the April 1 deadline.
The ruling does not apply to imports from Brazil, China, India or Vietnam and does not impact the antidumping duties in place with regard to all other Thai shrimp exporters.
One of the exporters excluded from the antidumping order, the Rubicon Group, also filed suit at the Court of International Trade (CIT) asserting that all antidumping duty deposits currently with the government for imports from the company through January of 2009 should be refunded (with interest) to U.S. importers. The case is currently pending before the Court and a decision is expected to be issued in early 2010.
Separately, with respect to the other exporter excluded from the antidumping order, Thai I-Mei, the CIT affirmed in June 2009 a second Commerce determination that would result in the refund of all antidumping duty deposits collected on imports of shrimp from the Thai producer Thai I-Mei to the exporter’s respective importers. Commerce issued a determination that resulted in the calculation of a de minimis margin of dumping for Thai I-Mei in response to an earlier CIT ruling and over the objection of the SSA. The agency, however, has appealed the CIT’s ruling to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.