U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced that Stephanie McCloskey, an administrator for VisionTech Components, LLC, has been sentenced to 38 months in prison for her role in a scheme in which she and others imported counterfeit integrated circuits from China and Hong Kong and sold them to the U.S. Navy, defense contractors and others, marketing some of the products as "military-grade."
The Justice Department has announced that five individuals and four of their companies have been indicted as part of a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. that allegedly caused thousands of radio frequency modules to be illegally exported from the U.S. to Iran. At least 16 of those items were later found in unexploded improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq. Some defendants are also charged in a conspiracy involving exports of military antennas to Singapore and Hong Kong.
The Justice Department is announcing that the former president of Terra Telecommunications Corp. was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in a scheme to pay bribes to Haitian government officials at Telecommunications D’Haiti S.A.M. (Haiti Telecom), a state-owned telecommunications company. The former executive vice president of Terra was also sentenced to 84 months in prison for his role in the bribery scheme. According to DOJ, this sentence -- the longest sentence ever imposed in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) case -- is a stark reminder to executives that bribing government officials to secure business advantages is a serious crime with serious consequences.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a video regarding the work that lead to the conviction of a Tijuana business man who was sentenced to 70 months in prison and a $7 million fine for his illegal transshipment scheme involving the importation of wire hangers into the U.S. from China that were subject to antidumping duty, then shipping the hangers in bond to Mexico, marking them as made in Mexico, and then importing them back into the U.S. and claiming NAFTA duty benefits.
Furniture Brands International, Inc. filed questionnaire responses for the International Trade Commission in 2005 opposing the issuance of an AD duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China, but later sought a share of AD duties resulting from the order, under the Byrd Amendment (aka the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA).
Chinese producer Hebei Foreign Trade and Advertising Corporation contested the final results of the International Trade Administration’s first AD administrative review of certain activated carbon from China, for the period October 11, 2006, through March 31, 2008. Finding that Hebei Foreign had failed to qualify for separate rate status because a sales agent, rather than a direct employee, had signed the separate rate questionnaire certifications, the ITA assigned the company the China-wide rate of 228.11%.
The Justice Department has announced that Gilberto Baez-Garcia has been sentenced to 24 months in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud the Export-Import Bank of more than $3.6 million. Baez was also sentenced to five years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $3,614,594 in restitution and $3,614,977 in forfeiture. According to court documents, Baez admitted that he and another El Paso exporter created false documents so Baez could obtain a fraudulent Ex-Im Bank loan and assisted others to obtain fraudulent Ex-Im loans. They stole the loan proceeds by transferring funds to Mexico and elsewhere. As a result, the loans went into default and caused the Ex-Im Bank to pay claims losses to the lending banks in the amount of $3,614,594.
SKF USA Inc. and its overseas affiliates successfully contested the final results of the May 2007- April 2008 antidumping duty administrative review of ball bearings and parts thereof from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK, challenging the International Trade Administration’s use of zeroing (excluding all non-dumped sales transactions) in margin calculations and its “15-day rule” for issuing liquidation instructions following final determinations.
The International Trade Administration assigned an adverse facts available (AFA) rate and denied separate rate status to a Chinese producer/exporter (Foshan Shunde Yongjian Housewares & Hardware Co., Ltd.) in the August 2007 - July 2008 antidumping duty administrative review of floor-standing metal-top ironing tables and certain parts thereof from China. (Without separate rate status, the company would be subject to the China-wide rate, usually higher than a separately calculated rate).
Domestic manufacturer Nucor Fastener Division challenged the negative preliminary injury determination by the International Trade Commission in its January 2006 - June 2009 AD and CV duty investigations of certain standard steel fasteners (CSSF) from China and Taiwan, and the Court of International Trade remanded the determination to the agency. The court noted that the ITC had concluded that “there is no reasonable indication that an industry in the United States is materially injured or threatened…by reason of imports” of CSSF from China and Taiwan despite reports of lost revenues from five out of six U.S. producers surveyed. The court particularly faulted the ITC’s reliance on “manifestly incomplete import data” as “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion,” noting that the agency’s statement that its limited import volume data were comprehensive was “a complete failure to consider an important aspect of the problem.” (Slip Op. 11-104, dated August 11, 2011, public version posted subsequently)