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Our Bureau

Kochi , May 19

SEAFOOD exporters in the country have filed a lawsuit against the US Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) before the US Court of International Trade against the new bond rules imposed on shrimp importers from India.

The Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) said in a statement here on Thursday that the lawsuit was filed on May 13, challenging the lawfulness of the rules.

According to an SEAI spokesman, a Washington-based law firm, Kaye Scholer LLP, has been appointed to fight the case.

The spokesman said as per the new bond rules, an Indian shrimp exporter will have to furnish bonds worth 10.35 per cent of the value of his previous financial year's exports to the US.

In addition to this, he will also have to pay the 10.35 per cent anti-dumping duty imposed by the US in February last for every shipment he sends to the US.

"We consider this as a trade barrier," he said.

The association said it had no option but to take this legal action because many US importers had been forced to comply with these rules by offering full collateral and incurring high transaction costs, or to reduce their business with the SEAI members.

Consequently, the Indian shrimp exports have been exposed to the risk of becoming relatively uncompetitive.

"Although SEAI believes that imposition of anti-dumping duty is unwarranted, the Indian shrimp producers and their importers in the US have been fully complying with the US anti-dumping law, including the payment of cash deposits for entire duty at the time of import into the US as required by US law," the statement said.

A few months ago, the CBP adopted the new bond rules requiring higher bond amounts to be posted in full with it by the US importers of shrimp, especially from India, the SEAI said.

"In effect, these draconian rules double the anti-dumping duty that importers of Indian shrimp are required to pay," the SEAI said.

The CBP says it encountered difficulties in collecting anti-dumping duties in some other cases in the past when these duties were assessed retrospectively as required under the US anti-dumping law.

Cases pertaining to anti-dumping duty on garlic and crawfish involving one or more non-market economy countries were cited by the CBP while implementing the new bond rules.

However, SEAI said such cases were few and they happened under `extraordinary circumstances' such as new shipper reviews.

The CBP applied new rules across the board to imports of all "agriculture or aquaculture" products liable to anti-dumping duty. The implementation of new rules was also discriminatory, the association said.

"The result of the new bond rules is that law abiding importers of shrimp from India who are already depositing all the anti-dumping duties required by the US Department of Commerce at the time of entry are now being penalised by an overly broad measure directed at the actions of only certain errant importers from other countries of other products," the association said.

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