Catfish Farmers Challenge Commerce's India Pick for Fish Fillet Surrogate Values in AD Case

The Commerce Department should have picked Indonesia over India when selecting a surrogate country in an antidumping duty administrative review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, Catfish Farmers of America said in an Aug. 30 complaint filed at the Court of International Trade. Commerce picked India in spite of the fact that Indonesia "produces identical and comparable merchandise that more closely represents the subject merchandise than does India, Indonesia produces and exports far greater quantities than India, and the Indonesian data on the record are superior to the Indian data," the complaint said (Catfish Farmers of Ameirca, et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00380).

Seafood Joint Stock Company No. 4 Branch Dongtam Fisheries Processing Company (DOTASEAFOOD) and Vinh Hoan Corporation were picked as the mandatory respondents in the review. Commerce picked India to stand in for the respondents' costs since Vietnam is marked as a non-market economy. In their challenge to this pick, the catfish farmers took special exception to Commerce's reliance on Indian surrogate values for certain factors of production such as the Indian values for fingerlings, whole live fish, fish feed, labor and by-products.

The domestic catfish farmers also took issue with Commerce's decision to not apply adverse facts available for DOTASEAFOOD. "Substantial record evidence in this administrative review demonstrates that DOTASEAFOOD failed to report necessary information which was in its possession, and this failure to cooperate to the best of its ability, warranted application of an adverse facts available rate to induce future cooperation," the complaint said.