A Chilean salmon exporter was accused of dumping salmon in the U.S. market at less than fair value. An antidumping petition was filed in 1997 by the Coalition for Fair Atlantic Salmon Trade. The U.S. Department of Commerce (ITA) initiated an antidumping duty investigation to determine whether Chilean exporters of Atlantic fresh farmed salmon were selling the fish in the United States at less than fair market value, to the detriment of U.S. industry. The purpose of the investigation was to determine whether dumping duties should be imposed on the subject merchandise when imported into the United States.
The ITA conducted an investigation in order to compare the price of the salmon sold in the United States with its “normal value” in Chile (home market). Since the product is not sold in the home market, the ITA based the normal value on the price of the salmon sold in Japan. The exporter sold “premium”-grade salmon in the United States while it sold “premium” and “superpremium” grades in Japan. The ITA found that (a) salmon industries do not recognize any grade higher than premium grade, and all salmon in this range are graded equally; (b) salmon graded “superpremium” are in fact premium grade and comparable in the market place. The ITA recognized that the exporter reported higher prices for sales of superpremium-grade salmon to Japan (sales of premium salmon to Japan covered a few months and involved relatively small quantities and thus were insufficient to help in evaluating price differences). The practical consequences of the ITA’s decision to classify the two grades of salmon (superpremium and premium) as identical in physical characteristics was to impose a dumping margin of 2.23 percent on the Chilean exports of premium salmon in the United States.
Source: Seyoum Belay (2014), Export-import theory, practices, and procedures, Routledge; 3rd edition.
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