The International Trade Commission’s denial of eligibility for benefits under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA, aka the Byrd Amendment) for U.S. crawfish producer PS Chez Sidney was reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The ITC had originally ruled Chez Sidney ineligible in 2002, only to reverse its decision pursuant to a 2007 Court of International Trade remand after CIT said the petition support requirement of CDSOA violated the First Amendment. Then, in 2010, ITC once again found Chez Sidney ineligible for benefits after CAFC reversed CIT’s 2007 remand because of CAFC’s SKF v. USA ruling, which had found that the petition support requirement was constitutional. In this ruling, CAFC also remanded CBP’s decision, made during the 2007-2010 period during which Chez Sidney was found eligible, to only distribute benefits to Chez Sidney to the extent that the already distributed benefits were recoverable from other domestic producers.

Two men accused of creating a global network of shell companies to deceive U.S. companies into supplying nuclear-related materials to Iran were indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia, reported Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to a superseding indictment made public Friday, Iranian national Parviz Khaki and Chinese national Zongcheng Yi allegedly attempted to obtain and illegally export U.S.-origin materials to Iran that can be used to construct, operate and maintain gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, ICE said. This includes materials such as maraging steel, aluminum alloys, mass spectrometers, vacuum pumps and other items. Khaki is also accused of conspiring to procure radioactive source materials from the U. S. for customers in Iran, said ICE.

The Department of Justice reported the unsealing of charges against Saeed Talebi, an Iranian national arrested July 12 in connection with a scheme to illegally export from the United States to Iran parts and goods designed for use in industrial operations. According to the indictment, on numerous occasions throughout 2011, Talebi and others worked to ship industrial parts and goods from United States-based firms to Dubai, acting through a company identified in the Indictment as “Company-1.” These items were then to be sent to various petrochemical companies located in Iran without the required OFAC export license, DOJ said. In the course of this scheme, Talebi also caused money to be wired to the United States, including over $300,000 sent to a bank account in Manhattan.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized 70 websites that were illegally selling counterfeit merchandise by mimicking legitimate websites selling authentic merchandise and duping consumers into unknowingly buying counterfeit goods that were imported from abroad, it said. According to ICE, Many of the websites so closely resembled the legitimate websites that it would be difficult for even the most discerning consumer to tell the difference.

Great Western Malting Co. of Vancouver, Wash., agreed to pay $1,347,750 to settle apparent violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, said the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The apparent violations occurred between August 2006 and March 2009, when Great Western performed back-office functions for the sales by a foreign affiliate of non-U.S. origin barley malt to Cuba. OFAC said the apparent violations constitute a non-egregious case. It did say that Great Western did not have an adequate OFAC compliance program in place at the time of the violations and some of the violations involved transactions with Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) in Cuba. But it said Great Western has no history of prior OFAC violations, substantially cooperated with OFAC, and, if the subject goods had been shipped from the U.S., they would have been eligible for an OFAC license.

ADC Telecommunications Inc. will pay the U.S. government $1 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims to federal agencies when it sold telecommunications goods manufactured in countries prohibited by the Trade Agreements Act, the Justice Department said. It said that from October 2005 to December 2008, ADC sold telecommunications hardware, such as communication modems, extender modules and shelf adapters to various federal agencies through its General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule contract that were knowingly manufactured in countries such as China that don't have reciprocal trade agreements with the U.S. and are not on the list of designated countries.

The Justice Department announced a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to the arrest of four fugitives allegedly involved in the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The announcement came July 9, as the indictment charging five individuals in the case was unsealed in Tucson.

Jovana Samaniego Deas, a former special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison following a multi-agency investigation that revealed she illegally accessed, stole and transferred sensitive U.S. government documents to unauthorized individuals and obstructed investigations, ICE said. In her plea hearing, Deas had admitted to abusing her position as a special agent to illegally obtain and disseminate government documents classified as "For Official Use Only." According to ICE, some of the sensitive information Deas accessed was later discovered by Brazilian law enforcement on the laptop computer of her former brother-in-law, who has ties to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico and Brazil.

The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s second remand redetermination of the final results of the 2005-06 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products (A-533-820). This second remand redetermination, which was ordered by CIT in April (i) for application of the ITA’s new policy on adjusting cost of production in accordance with the adjustment to Indian company Essar Steel Limited’s export price resulting from its duty-drawback claim, and (ii) to allow for the correction of a ministerial error discovered by Essar and agreed to by the ITA, sets the AD rate for Essar at 9.01%, up from 5.22% in the original final results. No parties contested the second remand redetermination, so CIT sustained it.

Pratt & Whitney Canada, a Canadian subsidiary of the Connecticut-based defense contractor United Technologies pleaded guilty June 28 to violating the Arms Export Control Act and making false statements in connection with its illegal export to China of U.S.-origin military software used in the development of China's first modern military attack helicopter, the Z-10, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement. United Technologies, its U.S.-based subsidiary Hamilton Sundstrand, and Pratt & Whitney Canada have all agreed to pay more than $75 million as part of a global settlement with the Justice Department and State Department in connection with the violations and for making false and belated disclosures to the U.S. government about these illegal exports, ICE said, of which up to $20 million can be suspended if applied by UTC to remedial compliance measures.