The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep) said it is preparing to sue the US Department of Commerce (DOC) over conclusions reached in the tenth administrative review (POR10) of anti-dumping duties on shrimp products imported from Vietnam, reports Vietnam Net.

According to regulations, Vietnam has the right to submit a file to the US International Commerce Court within 30 days.

Vietnam does not dump shrimp in the US, so it will sue the DOC to ask for the tariff to be brought back to the zero level, Vasep said.

According to the Vietnam Competition Authority (VCA) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, POR10 was applied to frozen shrimp shipments imported into the US from Feb. 1, 2014, to Jan. 31, 2015.

Voluntary respondents are subject to an anti-dumping duty rate of 4.78%, while the tariff imposed on other Vietnamese firms or exporters remains at 25.76%.

It added that the US had significantly increased the duty rate for Vietnamese shrimp in the POR10, from 0.91% in the POR9 to 4.78% at present.

The main reason for the significant increase is the DOC’s continued application of differential pricing, allowing it reuse the zeroing method to calculate the dumping margins.

In addition, the DOC chose India -- besides Bangladesh as the main reference country -- to fix prices of several input materials, leading to increased dumping margins.