Catfish Petitioner Contests AD/CVD Rates on Vietnamese Frozen Fish, Claims Reporting Issues

A domestic catfish producer and petitioner brought a case to the Court of International Trade on May 9 contesting the Commerce Department’s 2020-21 review of frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. The petitioner is currently involved in ongoing litigation regarding the department’s 2019-20 review (see 2403280061) (Catfish Farmers of America v. U.S., CIT # 24-00082).

In this case, petitioner Catfish Farmers of America said it is challenging Commerce’s decision not to apply either total or partial adverse inferences to mandatory respondent CASEAMEX due to its “failure to properly report packing factors.”

Commerce asked CASEAMEX “to report packing factors for ‘all models or product types’ that were sold in the United States, based on its total production of those models/types, ‘including that portion of the production that was not destined for the United States,’” Catfish Farmers said. However, CASEAMEX only reported the factors for materials associated with its U.S. shipments and “refused to comply” when Commerce notified it of the error, the petitioner said.

However, Commerce refused to apply adverse inferences because it said its instructions to the respondent had been ambiguous. The department also said that it hadn’t issued any supplemental questionnaires “specifying that CASEAMEX was to report packing factors based on total production of relevant models,” although it actually had requested all “PACKTYPE FOPs [factors of production] that incorporate all packing materials … regardless of whether those packing materials were used for shipments to the United States,” Catfish Farmers said.

Commerce then wrongly rejected its ministerial comments, the petitioner said.

It asked the trade court to remand Commerce’s final results for a new determination consistent with the court’s final opinion.