The Court of International Trade will hold a training workshop on new features and procedures in the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system on Dec. 11 from 2:30-4:30 p.m. in New York, N.Y. Two hours of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit will be provided. The workshop is not mandatory, but CIT encouraged attorneys who practice before CIT and their support staff to register. The format of the workshop will allow for practical application of skills and for development of skills with new features of the system, CIT said. To attend, complete a request (here) and email it to cmecf_training@cit.uscourts.gov, or fax it to (212) 264-3242 to the attention of Glenn Johnston.

Ohio-based Basco Manufacturing will pay $1.1 million to settle allegations that it transshipped and mislabeled merchandise to avoid paying antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions it imported from China, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. The case is part of a larger False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuit against four companies and two individuals that imported aluminum extrusions manufactured by Chinese company Tai Shan. The government chose to intervene in the suit against Basco, California-based C.R. Laurence Co.; Florida-based Southeastern Aluminum Products Inc.; Texas-based Waterfall Group LLC; New York-based Northeastern Aluminum Corp.; Northeastern’s owner, William Ma; and Robert Wingfield, the U.S. representative of Chinese exporter Tai Shan Golden Gain Aluminum Products Ltd.

A U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York sentenced on Nov. 15 Chinese National Zhifu Lin to 108 months imprisonment, following an illegal weapons trafficking conviction. The 27-year-old Lin allegedly sent dozens of semi-automatic handguns, rifles, shotguns, and military-style assault weapons to China from 2010-2012, in violation on the Arms Export Control Act. The weapons transferred are included in the U.S. Munitions List and require a State Department export license. Lin has been in federal custody since his April 2012 arrest in West Virginia.

A Texas man was sentenced to three years in prison following a guilty plea for "facilitating illegal honey imports by falsely declaring that the honey originated in countries other than China to avoid $37.9 million in anti-dumping duties," said ICE in a Nov. 14 press release. Jun Yang, who brokered the sale of "hundreds of container loads of Chinese-origin honey" he said originated from India or Malaysia, will begin his sentence in federal prison in January. Yang facilitated the scheme through his companies, National Honey and National Commodities Company, said ICE. The sentencing stems from the prosecution of two major honey suppliers announced in February (see 13022131). An AD duty order issued in 2001 assessed duties as high as 221 percent on Chinese honey. Current duties are assessed based on weight, and are set at $2.63 per kilogram for the China-wide entity. All honey is also charged an assessment fee of one cent per pound.

The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a securities fraud class action lawsuit related to an importer’s evasion of antidumping duties. Shah Rahman had argued that Kid Brands misled investors when it failed to immediately disclose that it was subject to a CBP focused assessment, and that its subsidiaries had mislabeled its products to disguise their origin and evade AD duties on wooden bedroom furniture from China. The company’s stock price tumbled from $9.24 to $2.97 per share as the news emerged over a five month span. The New Jersey U.S. District Court dismissed the case in October 2012, because Raman didn’t prove that executives at Kid Brands intended to deceive investors. On appeal, the 3rd Circuit wasn’t convinced by the testimony of six confidential witnesses, and upheld the dismissal.

In an August decision only made public on Nov. 14, the Court of International Trade remanded aspects of the Commerce Department’s 2008-09 antidumping duty administrative review on steel nails from China (A-570-909). The court’s Aug. 30 opinion took issue with Commerce’s treatment of entries that importers had said were exported by Certified Products International (CPI), even though that Taiwanese company was found to have no exports during the period. CIT found inconsistencies between Commerce practice in market economy reviews, where the importers would have paid the all others rate in that situation, and non-market economy reviews such as this one, where the importers were allowed to pay CPI’s rate.

The antidumping duty rate assigned to Thai Plastic Bags Industries (TPBI) will rise slightly, after the Court of International Trade affirmed a Commerce Department redetermination of the AD duty administrative review on polyethylene retail carrier bags from Thailand (A-549-821). Commerce had assigned TPBI a rate of 35.71% in the final results of the 2009-10 review. The agency made minor changes to its calculation for the company in response to a March 2013 court remand (see 13041102, bringing TPBI’s AD rate up to 35.79%. CIT affirmed in increase in the face of challenges from both TPBI and domestic industry.

Antidumping duty cash deposit rates will fall for three exporters of wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890), after the Court of International Trade sustained on Nov. 14 a Commerce Department redo of a 2009 administrative review. Commerce had originally set AD duty rates at 41.75% for mandatory respondent Dalian Huafeng, as well as non-individually reviewed separate rate companies Nanhai Baiyi and Dongguan Liaobushangdun.¹ But after two CIT remands (see 12092102 and 13062702), Commerce lowered the AD rates for all three companies to 11.79%.

The Court of International Trade sustained on Nov. 8 the high 137.2% antidumping duty rate assigned to Hubscher Ribbon Corp. for noncooperation in an administrative review on narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge from Taiwan. Hubschercorp had responded to the Commerce Department’s first request for information in the 2010-11 review, and then told the agency it would no longer participate. Commerce assigned it a 137.2% AD rate, relying on adverse facts available. Hubschercorp said that rate couldn’t possibly reflect reality, given that the only individual AD rates calculated up to that point on ribbons from Taiwan were zero and 4.37 percent, respectively. Given Commerce’s corroboration of the high rate using Hubschercorp’s own data, the court found that argument lacking. Hubschercorp merely showed Commerce could have interpreted the record in a different way when it assigned the rate but it failed to show Commerce’s rate was unreasonable.

The Court of International Trade denied on Nov. 6 an attempt by LG Electronics to put on hold a case on the International Trade Commission's antidumping and countervailing duty injury determination on large residential washers from South Korea and Mexico. LG Electronics wanted the case delayed while CIT considered a separate lawsuit on the Commerce Department's determinations from the same investigation. It argued that if the court remanded and Commerce came back with low AD/CV duty rates, it could affect the ITC's consideration. But the court found the potential upside of LG's Commerce Department challenge to be uncertain -- even if Commerce reduced its rates to zero, there is no guarantee the ITC would change its injury determination -- to justify the potentially years-long delay that would result from waiting on the outcome of the Commerce case.