Chicago-area importer Mazzetta Company has sued the US Commerce Department over the way it calculated the rate of anti-dumping it duty imposed on vannamei shrimp imported from Vietnam. 

In a Oct. 10 lawsuit filed before the US Court of International Trade, Mazzetta argued that Commerce acted inappropriately when it decided to use values for black tiger shrimp from Bangladesh as a "surrogate" in determining duty rates imposed on Vietnamese exporter Sao Ta Foods Joint Stock Company otherwise known as Fimex VN. The department should have used Indonesian vannamei prices as its surrogate instead, the company argued.

"Commerce’s determination that the black tiger species shrimp prices from Bangladesh were the best available information on the record for purposes of valuing Fimex VN’s raw vannamei species shrimp factor of production was unsupported by substantial evidence and was otherwise not in accordance with law," Mazzetta said. 

The company has asked the court to determine that Commerce's actions were "unlawful" and "remand these matters" back to the department for redetermination of the duty rates.