Commerce’s Standard for Determining Domestic Wholesaler Status Unreasonable, Seafood Seller Says
U.S. seafood seller Luscious Seafood pushed back against a petitioner’s argument that it wasn’t a wholesaler of domestic like product for an administrative review of an antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, saying it faced “higher hurdles” in proving its status than a similarly positioned party (Luscious Seafood v. United States, CIT # 24-00069).
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“Domestic interested party status should not be treated as membership in an exclusive club, only open to those parties who were afforded such status in prior segments of a proceeding,” it said.
It also claimed that, while the petitioner spent a significant part of its submission arguing the Commerce Department was “effectuat[ing] Congress’ intent” that “tangential or fugitive wholesaling activity” not be allowed to drive the agency’s actions (see 2501240066), the term “wholesaler” was not actually defined in the relevant law.
And, although some standards are reasonable, Luscious generally faced much stronger headwinds in proving it was an interested party for a review than did importers or investigation petitioners. For example, it said, an importer only needed to provide a “single document” demonstrating import activities to participate in the proceeding, while Catfish Farmers of Americas submitted nothing.