Shrimp Petition Updated Timeline  |  View as PDF
	Latest Legal Update from Willkie, Farr and Gallagher  |  View as PDF

This Shrimp Task Force Member Alert provides an update on the International Trade Commission/ Department of Commerce (DOC) shrimp antidumping investigation.

We are entering a critical time in the process and we need your continued support and participation in the Task Force government relations and public relations campaign to defeat these duties.

The Task Force’s efforts to date have at a minimum prevented the Department of Commerce’s use of its discretionary powers in favor of the petitioners that could have produced far larger preliminary dumping margins. In the coming days and weeks, the petitioners will increase political pressure to attempt to increase the dumping margins. Task Force members need to be vigilant to ensure defeat of the dumping duties at the ITC.

In the weeks ahead, the DOC will again be making many discretionary decisions that will determine the severity of the antidumping (AD) margins that may be imposed. The battle to win low or no AD margins in the DOC portion of these AD investigations is by no means over, and is just entering a most important final phase.

We need your help!

We are requesting Task Force members to do the following:

• If you have not done so yet, we urge you to consider renewing your financial commitment to ASDA and/or CITAC to continue the work of the Shrimp Task Force.

• We continue to seek volunteers to speak with the news media. Our case is made much more effective when Task Force members can speak firsthand about their experiences and the impact of the proposed duties.

• The Task Force’s government relations team would like for you to communicate with your Representatives and Senators in Congress. Let them know that:

• The Commerce Department will be making its final determinations on dumping margins in the shrimp cases in a few weeks.

• The Department thus has another opportunity to review the facts in these cases, including new evidence supplied by both sides. It is essential to the continuing credibility of the United States in enforcing our trade laws that these final determinations take into account all such facts, and apply U.S. law and the WTO rules to those facts. This includes the recent WTO ruling that the U.S. should take fair account of sales where there are negative dumping margins, instead of "zeroing" out those sales.

• While it is possible that dumping margins MAY increase in some cases, we believe that careful application of the rules and the facts should mean that dumping margins ARE reduced or even eliminated for certain exporters.

• Reducing or eliminating margins will be objectionable to domestic shrimpers and their supporters, but assuring that the final results of the Commerce Department's investigation are "by the book" can only benefit overall U.S. interests.

• Reducing or eliminating margins will assure affected customers (like you) and ultimate consumers that the process fairly addresses their concerns.

• The Representative or Senator should write or call Commerce Secretary Evans to let him know they are watching the final determination process to assure that it is fair.

• Please let ASDA or CITAC know if your Representative or Senators agree to write or call the Commerce Department.

Please click on the links at the top for a timetable of petition deadlines and a complete legal update from Willkie Farr & Gallagher.