Vietnam and the US on Mar. 28 started holding consultations on the second lawsuit over US anti-dumping taxation on Vietnamese export frozen shrimp, after Vietnam ’s request to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body on Feb. 20.

The 60 day consultations focus on US compliance with the July 11, 2011 conclusion of the previous lawsuit, its moves in amending laws on calculating dumping margins and the US’s implementation of procedures relating to anti-dumping on goods shipped from Vietnam.

During the consultation, if the US accepts Vietnam ’s arguments, the disputes will be settled and the US must remove all unfavourable calculations on anti-dumping duties and regulations, otherwise, Vietnam will ask the WTO to form a panel to mediate the differences.

In the first Vietnam-US lawsuit, WTO concluded that US use of zeroing to calculate the common tax rates for Vietnamese frozen shrimp was inconsistent with WTO regulations.

The zeroing the US applied on Vietnam made anti-dumping duties much higher than normal calculations, which brought about considerable losses to Vietnamese shrimp exporters.-VNA