Huber agreed to pay more than $2 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging it misclassified its imports of pigment to avoid paying a higher tariff rate, according to documents unsealed by the Western North Carolina U.S. District Court. According to the False Claims Act complaint filed by the whistleblower -- John Dickson, chief executive officer of National Ford Chemical -- two companies now owned by Huber, Hostmann-Steinberg and Micro Inks, fraudulently obtained rulings from CBP that directed classification under a tariff subheading for printing ink. The pigment they were actually importing required further processing before being used as printing ink, a fact they did not convey to CBP, the complaint said. Printing ink is subject to a lower tariff rate. The companies also undervalued the merchandise, the settlement said. Huber did not admit to the allegations as part of the settlement. Under the agreement, Huber will pay $2 million to the government and $187,000 to the whistleblower. The court still has yet to accept the settlement and dismiss the case. The government, which chose to intervene in the case, said in a July filing that the issue of how much Dickson will receive in the settlement was still undecided. Dickson received nearly $8 million of a $45 million settlement with another ink company in 2012 resolving a False Claims Act case (see 12121804).

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 14-20:

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 7-13:

CBP will pay $72,222.32 as part of a settlement with a furniture importer that was mistakenly used as the importer of record and later assessed antidumping duties on an entry of wooden bedroom furniture from China, according to a settlement agreement filing with the Court of International Trade. The importer, Lifestyle Enterprise, challenged CBP in the CIT over a denied protest (see 1501290028) that left the company liable for antidumping duties (see 1502190058). CBP and Lifestyle agreed to the settlement "without reliquidating the entry subject to this action," according to the court filing. Lifestyle also agreed to seek a voluntary motion to dismiss with prejudice, abandon all other claims and cover its own litigation costs. Lifestyle originally sued for $144,444.64, the amount of the bill it received for the entry on which it was mistakenly listed as importer of record. A related lawsuit against the customs broker, which did not have a power of attorney from Lifestyle, was dismissed last year due to jurisdictional issues (see 1509210065). The Justice Department, Lifestyle and CBP didn't comment.

National Oilwell Varco entered into a $25 million non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas after the company allegedly violated Iranian and other sanctions regulations from about 2002 to 2009, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said (here). National Oilwell Varco also entered into settlements with OFAC and the Bureau of Industry and Security. Between October 2002 and April 2005, the company approved at least four payments totaling $2.63 million by its subsidiary Dreco Energy Services to a United Kingdom-based entity relating to the sale and exportation of goods, directly or indirectly, from Dreco to Iran, in apparent violation of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, OFAC said. The company also engaged in two transactions combining for nearly $13.6 million, involving the sale and exportation of goods to Iran, and/or facilitated those transactions in violation of the Iranian sanctions regulations.

Three U.S. honey producers entered into settlements totaling more than $796,000 with a group of honey importers alleged to have taken part in a transshipment scheme to avoid antidumping duties on Chinese honey, according to a press release issued Nov. 14 (here) by Honey Solutions, a defendant in the case. Judge Joan Gottschall of the U.S. District Court in Chicago approved the settlements of the class-action lawsuit filed in 2013 (see 13042318) without assigning guilt. The lawsuit named 31 defendants total, according to a court document. Honey Solutions said Gottschall dismissed the “remaining aspects” of the putative class-action lawsuit that alleged several domestic honey producers took part in a transshipment scheme to dodge more than $180 million in AD duties on Chinese honey. Gottschall conducted a fairness hearing to approve the settlements, after defendants “vigorously contested claims throughout the litigation,” the press release says.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 31 - Nov. 6:

A U.S. District Court judge sentenced a Chinese national to 15 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $63,000 fine for his role in a conspiracy to sell counterfeit computer chips to someone in the U.S., the Justice Department said (here). The counterfeit chips were meant to replace integrated circuits stolen from the U.S. military, DOJ said. Xianfeng Zuo, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, and two accomplices each owned businesses in China that bought and sold the fake chips, including two packages Daofu Zhang sent to the U.S. person in November 2015 containing eight counterfeit chips. DOJ announced in July that co-conspirator Zhang was also sentenced to 15 months in prison and a $63,000 fine. The final alleged co-conspirator, Jiang Yan, awaits sentencing.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission seek comments by Dec. 1 on proposed revisions to the Antitrust Guidelines for International Enforcement and Cooperation. The new draft guidelines (here) “restructure the previous guidelines in order to make the guidelines more useful and accessible by focusing on the questions of greatest significance to users,” DOJ said. “The proposed revisions also describe the current practices and methods of analysis the Agencies employ when determining whether to initiate and how to conduct investigations of, or enforcement actions against, conduct with an international dimension,” it said, including import and export transactions. The current version of the guidelines (here) was published in 1995.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 24-30: