A Taiwanese producer/exporter challenged the International Trade Administration’s use of invoice date to define the dates of its U.S. sales in the May 2008 - April 2009 AD administrative review of certain circular welded steel pipes and tubes from Taiwan. Yieh Phui Enterprise Co. argued that few of its terms of sale changed after contract date and that in other, similar cases, the ITA used a date other than invoice date. However, the Court of International Trade agreed with the ITA’s “detailed, well-reasoned response” to each of Yieh Phui’s arguments, noting in particular that the agency observed frequent sales terms changes between contract date and invoice date. Accordingly, the court upheld the agency’s use of its standard sale-dating practice for Yieh Phui. (Slip Op. 11-107, dated August 24, 2011, public version posted subsequently)

The Supreme Court has stated that it will hear a case involving Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd., and Shell Transport and Trading Company PLC. The case involves whether corporations are immune from tort liability under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS, 28 USC 1350) for violations of nations' laws, such as for torture, extrajudicial executions or genocide; or if corporations may be sued in the same manner as any other private party defendant under the ATS for such egregious violations.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas has announced that Loren Willis from Florida, has been convicted for his part in a conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act. According to court information, in September 2010, Willis and one of his co-defendants traveled from Florida to Texas to harvest alligator gar for the purpose of selling the fish domestically and in Japan. Willis' co-defendant has pleaded guilty to altering documentation submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service to reflect that the fish were captive bred (which does not require inspection prior to export) rather than harvested in the wild.

The Court of International Trade has ruled that licensed customs broker Guillermo Lizarraga is entitled to reimbursement of attorney fees and other expenses after successfully challenging U.S. Customs and Border Protection's 2008 deactivation and suspension of his entry filer code for alleged misuse. The CIT states Lizarraga is entitled to reimbursement as CBP's¹ position was not substantially justified and because there are no special circumstances that make such an award unjust.

A patent holder for a design of coaxial cable connectors (John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. dba PPC, Inc.) lost an appeal of a section 337 ruling by the International Trade Commission that held that spending funds on patent infringement litigation does not amount to investing in a domestic manufacturing industry. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit noted that Section 337 only protects against infringement of valid and enforceable U.S. patents by imports if a domestic U.S. industry “exists or is in the process of being established,” as shown by investment in plant, equipment, labor, capital, engineering, R & D, or licensing. PPC claimed it incurred litigation costs to protect its patents for the purpose of later seeking license deals. The court conceded that some enforcement litigation costs may support a finding that a domestic licensing industry exists, but agreed with the ITC that "allowing patent infringement litigation activities alone to constitute a domestic industry would place the bar…so low as to effectively render it meaningless." (Appeal No. 2010-1536, dated 10/04/11)

After Amsted Industries, Inc. licensed its secret railcar wheel manufacturing processes to a Chinese manufacturer, a different firm, TianRui Group Company Limited hired key employees of the licensee (who had signed confidentiality agreements) and began exporting wheels made with the Amsted process to the U.S. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a section 337 ruling by the International Trade Commission that TianRui had misappropriated Amsted’s processes, and also agreed with the ITC that the domestic U.S. industry was injured or threatened by the resulting imports, even though the production processes at issue are not currently in use within the U.S. (A dissenting justice argued that the misappropriation of trade secrets occurred in China and concluded that “United States trade secret law simply does not extend to acts occurring entirely in China.“) (Appeal No. 2010-1395, dated 10/11/11)

The Food and Drug Administration states that Medisca, Inc., a New York corporation located in Plattsburgh, New York, and its President, Antonio Dos Santos, age 63, of Montreal, Canada, have pled guilty to a one count misdemeanor of introducing a misbranded drug, specifically somatropin (human growth hormone), into interstate commerce using misleading labeling. Dos Santos faces a maximum term of up to one year in prison, a $100,000 fine, up to 1 year of supervised release to follow any period of incarceration, and an order of restitution. Medisca faces a maximum term of five years probation, a $200,000 fine, and an order of restitution. In addition, Dos Santos and Medisca have agreed to forfeit over $1.7 million, which represents Medisca's gross profits from the unlawful drug sales.

The Justice Department has announced that Kexue Huang, a Chinese national, has pleaded guilty to one count of economic espionage to benefit a component of the Chinese government and one count of trade secrets theft, in violation of the Economic Espionage Act.

Chinese producers contested the International Trade Administration’s remand determinations for the November 2003 - October 2004 AD administrative review of fresh garlic from China, in which the agency markedly increased their dumping margins, to between 26.67% and 55.18%. The Court of International Trade faulted the agency for repeatedly choosing “admittedly distorted Indian import statistics over potentially ‘perfect’ price quotes,” and ordered it to recalculate costs for garlic bulbs, plastic jars and lids, and cardboard cartons, as well as labor costs, which the agency had acknowledged needed recalculation. See ITT’s Online Archives or 06/21/11 news, 11062120, for BP summary of the ITA’s new method of calculating the labor wage rate for non-market economies.) Slip Op. 11-119, dated 09/26/11)

Russian producer PSC VSMPO-AVISMA Corp. (together with affiliate VSMPO-Tirus, U.S., Inc.) elected to withhold its participation in the AD administrative review of magnesium metal from the Russian Federation for the period April 1, 2007 through March 31, 2008, and the International Trade Administration then assigned it an adverse AD duty rate of 43.58 percent, which the company argued was not connected to commercial reality. In response to remand instructions from the Court of International Trade, the ITA cited import statistics showing AVISMA’s U.S. prices during the period of review, at a time of a rising ruble value. The CIT concluded that the agency had sufficiently demonstrated that AVISMA could have dumped at a rate close to 43.58% and upheld that rate assignment. (Slip Op. 11-115, dated 09/15/11)