A Chinese manufacturer/exporter challenged the International Trade Administration’s denial of a request for a changed circumstance review to reconsider the use of zeroing in the investigation which led to the AD duty order for diamond sawblades from China. The reason for the request was that after ITA made its final AD determination (but before it issued the AD order), it announced¹ that it would no longer use zeroing in investigations. Nevertheless, the ITA argued that it did not need to reconsider its use of zeroing in the sawblades investigation, because its final AD duty rate determination pre-dated the policy change. The Court of International Trade agreed with the ITA, finding the agency’s denial of a changed circumstance review was “not unreasonable.”

On August 24, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Google Inc. has agreed to forfeit $500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the U.S., which resulted in the unlawful importation of controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the U.S.

The Court of International Trade has ruled that an importer whose identity is alleged to have been stolen and used by another to enter goods that never came into the importer's possession, may not sue for a refund of liquidated damages as the importer failed to seek timely relief under 28 USC 1581(a) by protesting CBP's Notice of Redelivery. CIT stated that had the importer protested the Notice, it could have raised the exact issues raised in this suit.

On August 18, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Epps Shipping Company, a Liberian corporation doing business out of Puerto Rico has been sentenced to pay a $700,000 criminal penalty and has been placed on five years of supervised probation for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and making false statements to U.S. Coast Guard inspectors. Epps owned and controlled the M/V Carib Vision, a commercial ship that was engaged in the transportation of molasses throughout the Caribbean region. A Coast Guard investigation found that the crew of the vessel used the emergency bilge discharge system to dump its oily waste directly overboard without first processing it through the ship’s pollution prevention equipment as required. During probation, Epps will have to implement a comprehensive Environmental Compliance Plan to continuously monitor and evaluate pollution prevention from any ship it owns or operates.

On August 18, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Donald Cone of Maryland has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for his role in a sophisticated conspiracy to import and sell counterfeit Cisco-branded computer networking equipment.

In Arko Foods International, Inc., v. U.S., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a 2009 Court of International Trade judgment that although mellorine is a dairy product, it is not an article of milk as milk doesn't provide its essential character. Instead, the frozen dairy product it is classifiable as other edible ice.

On August 15, 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that Jacinda Jones, of Michigan, has been sentenced to two years in prison for selling $441,035 worth of counterfeit computer software after an investigation by the IPR Center. According to court documents, Jones sold more than 7,000 copies of pirated business software at discounted prices through the website cheapdl.com. The software had a retail value of more than $2 million and was owned by several companies, including Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit and Symantec.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reversed and remanded¹ a Court of International Trade decision that had barred a surety from suing on a claim that arose after the protest period expired. The litigant, Hartford Fire Insurance Company, claimed that CBP's failure to disclose certain criminal information about its client, an importer of crawfish from China, made its bond voidable at Hartford’s election.

Following the first AD administrative review of certain lined paper products from India, Indonesia, and China, for the period April 17, 2006 through August 31, 2007, the Court of International Trade agreed with domestic producers that the International Trade Administration had failed to articulate a rational connection between the record evidence and its selection of a single Indian company for surrogate financial ratios.

In the May 2007 - April 2008 AD administrative review of pure magnesium from China, the International Trade Administration found documents provided by a supplier to the sole respondent, Tianjin Magnesium International Co., Ltd., had been doctored, and gave Tianjin an adverse facts available rate of 111.73%.