The government on Feb. 24 filed suit against four importers of children’s products, alleging numerous violations of product safety standards. The Justice Department is seeking an order from the Central California U.S. District Court that prohibits the companies from importing any more violative product into the United States. According to the complaint, sampling by the Consumer Product Safety Commission has turned up violations of federal safety standards for lead, phthalates, and small parts in toys, as well as other CPSC product safety requirements.

Antidumping duty rates assigned to 29 exporters of frozen warmwater shrimp from China (A-570-893) in the 2004 original investigation will fall to 6.7%, after the Court of International Trade on Feb. 18 affirmed a remand redetermination from the Commerce Department. Although nearly a decade has passed since the rates were set, the change may apply in a few cases to current AD cash deposit requirements if no rates have been set in recent years.

The countervailing duty rate for aluminum extrusions from China (C-570-968) exported by Zhaoqing New Zhongya Aluminum is set to fall to 4.89%, after the Court of International Trade on Feb. 19 affirmed the Commerce Department’s recalculation of the company’s original investigation rate. Zhongya had been assigned a CV duty rate of 8.02% in 2011 (see 11052633), but CIT later took issue with the way Commerce valued land subsidies and remanded for Commerce to revisit the issue (see 13071901. Commerce didn’t set a new rate for Zhongya in the only CV duty administrative review completed since the original investigation (see 13123123), so the new 4.89% CV duty rate appears to apply to CV duty cash deposits on future entries as well.

The Court of International Trade on Feb. 18 sustained the 2.78% antidumping duty rate assigned to Xinjiamei Furniture (Zhangzhou) in a new shipper review on folding metal tables and chairs from China (A-570-868). After having remanded Xinjiamei’s AD rate in March 2013 (see 13031204), the court found that the Commerce Department complied with its instruction to justify its use of some data on the second go round. CIT refused to hear Xinjiamei’s arguments to the contrary because the company didn’t first address its concerns to Commerce after the agency issued a draft version of its remand redetermination.

A New Jersey man was found guilty Jan. 14 by a federal jury in Bangor, Maine of illegally trafficking and smuggling narwhal tusks, as well as associated money laundering charges, said the Justice Department. Andrew Zarauskas was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, smuggling, and money laundering violations for buying narwhal tusks despite knowing the tusks had been illegally imported into the U.S. from Canada, and selling the tusks after their illegal import, said DOJ.

The owner of a Chicago-area auto shop was charged with felony counterfeit trademarks after counterfeit airbags were found at the business, said ICE in a press release. The charges were a result of investigation by Cook County Sheriff’s Police, with assistance from ICE's Homeland Security Investigations and CBP, it said. Law enforcement first went to the shipping address for a shipment of counterfeit airbags from China, the release said. "CBP officers had seized the airbag shipment earlier that week. Investigators learned that Grzegorz Lepkowski, who lived at the location, had ordered the airbags for his friend Stanislaw Gondek. CBP had previously notified Gondek on three separate occasions that the agency had seized counterfeit airbags that were originally to be shipped to his business." A search of Gondek's business turned up 24 counterfeit airbags, said ICE.

Bridgestone Corp. has pleaded guilty and will pay a $425 million fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix the price of auto parts. The penalty for Bridgestone brings the total fines collected to over $2 billion in the Justice Department’s wide-ranging investigation on auto parts price fixing. According to DOJ, Bridgestone was part of a conspiracy to fix the prices of automotive anti-vibration rubber parts it sold to Toyota, Nissan, Fuji Heavy Industries, Suzuki, and Isuzu, as well as their subsidiaries, affiliates and suppliers, in the U.S. and abroad.

Law enforcement officials arrested a Chinese citizen in Seattle on Feb. 10 for allegedly breaking export control laws, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Washington. The government alleges See Kee Chin, aka Alfred Chin, of Hong Kong, entered the U.S. to obtain restricted parts and illegally smuggle them to China. According to the attorney’s office, Chin attempted to export accelerometers designated on the U.S. Munitions List. The accelerometers are designed for use in spacecraft. Chin was arrested after coming to pick up the order and paying $85,000 for the accelerometers. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.

The Court of International Trade on Feb. 6 ordered the Commerce Department to reconsider aspects of its 2010-11 antidumping duty administrative review on steel threaded rod from China (A-570-932). Chinese steel rod producers RMB Fasteners and IFI & Morgan, as well as their affiliated supplier Jiaxing Brother, had challenged the country chosen by Commerce to value their non-market inputs. When calculating home market prices in a non-market economy like China, Commerce constructs prices based on the market prices for inputs in a “surrogate country.” Commerce had chosen Thailand over the Philippines, resulting in a 19.68% AD duty rate. As a relatively less-developed country, choosing the Philippines would likely have resulted in lower input prices and cheaper constructed Chinese market prices, reducing the appearance of relative underpricing (i.e., dumping) in the U.S.as a result. CIT told Commerce to take another look at its choice of Thailand over the Philippines, citing aberrations in Thai data for some inputs used to make steel threaded rod.

Beef jerky is correctly classified as a cured meat in the tariff schedule, said the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 3 as it denied an appeal by importer Link Snacks. Although the production of beef jerky involves an additional drying process, the product is also cured beforehand, which puts it squarely within the parameters of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading for meat “of bovine animals: cured or pickled,” said CAFC.