US shrimp duties violated trade rules: WTO panel

Mumbai: The World Trade Organisation has ruled the US measures requiring India and Thailand to post bonds to cover anti-dumping duties on imports of shrimp violated international trade rules.

The dispute settlement panel, confirming preliminary rulings from October, also backed a Thai complaint against a controversial US method of calculating anti-dumping duties, known as zeroing.

The US authorities impose antidumping taxes when they believe their markets are being flooded with below-cost imports.

Thailand says the duties threaten its shrimp industry.

The WTO has consistently ruled that the US excessively taxes foreign goods suspected of dumping even as Washington defends how it calculates the fees.

The current WTO rulings are the latest in a series of setbacks to US efforts to control what it sees as unfairly priced imports.