Source: Financial Express
| India wins shrimp anti-dumping battle against US court ruling |
|
India has won a significant battle in its fight against the anti-dumping duty on shrimp with the United States Court of International Trade (CIT). The win allows India’s petition against customs bonds, which it had challenged at the WTO level. India is expecting a decision of the organization’s panel in the matter soon. AJ Tharakan, national president of the Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) which had filed the case against the bonds before the CIT along with Gourmet Fusion Foods Inc and International Creative Foods Inc, said that the decision of the court to hear SEAI’s case was a major victory for India which had been arguing that the bonds were against international trade practices. The US Bureau of Customs Border Protection (CBP) had issued directives for collection of bonds matching the duty as security. India argued that the CBP lacked statutory authority to require bonds as security for payment of anti-dumping duty was already secured by cash deposits. Hence, the promulgation of the bond directive was violation of the Act, arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and also not in accordance with the law. CBP argued that the plaintiffs had lacked standing because they had failed to demonstrate that they were adversely affected by an agency action. Equally, their interests were with the zone of interest protection by the statutes under which they brought their claim. However, the court ruled that the plaintiffs’ claims were ripe for review and they had standing to bring the action for scrutiny. Also, the SEAI had met the associational requirements to fight for the exporters. It felt that, there was no ground to dismiss the complaint of the plaintiffs and seek grant of relief. The defendants had offered no supportive argument to their case. It was in this backdrop that it felt, the matter was to be subjected to judicial review. Refusing to grant a stay in the matter, the court ruled that the CBP would get 30 days to file public administrative record which will include all public documents so that the matter could be heard. |
