Two more auto parts manufacturers agreed to plead guilty to charges that they conspired to fix prices of auto parts. In separate cases, Toyo Tire & Rubber agreed on Nov. 26 to pay $120 million to settle its charges (here), and Stanley Electric Co. Ltd. agreed on Nov. 27 to pay $1.44 million (here). The two settlements are part of the larger Justice Department investigation that has so far resulted in over $1.8 billion in criminal fines and prison time for 20 company executives for price fixing in the auto parts industry.

Thousands of small freight brokerage companies might have to shut down Dec. 1 due to the "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century" Act, according to an appeal filed by the Association of Independent Property Brokers & Agents (AIPBA) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. It said one provision of the 600-page transportation bill, Section 32918, requires the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to raise the bond requirement for freight brokers from $10,000 to at least $75,000. FMCSA issued a new rule Oct. 1 to implement the provision, without public participation, AIPBA said. The appeal said FMCSA's manner of enforcing the new bond amount was done improperly, and FMCSA should have to go through proper rulemaking and fact-finding before FMCSA enforces a new bond amount.

The Court of International Trade ordered the Commerce Department to rethink the 308.33% antidumping duty rate assigned to Blue Field in the 2010-11 administrative review of preserved mushrooms from China (A-570-851). Blue Field said the unusually high AD duty rate, which was calculated from data and not assigned as punishment, was skewed by the agency’s valuation of its rice straw and cow manure inputs. The high “surrogate values,” used because Commerce doesn’t trust Chinese input prices, drove up the agency’s estimate of Blue Field’s domestic prices, which resulted in the company’s U.S. prices looking extremely cheap (and dumped) by comparison. Blue Field pointed out that the Colombian rice straw prices used by Commerce were higher than Colombian prices for actual rice, and that the Colombian fertilizer prices used by Commerce were not specific to cow manure, and approached the price of hamburger meat. The court agreed that something was fishy with Commerce’s numbers, and remanded for agency reconsideration.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit announced higher new fee rates under the Judicial Conference of the United States’ miscellaneous fee schedule, effective Dec. 1. Changes include a $50 increase in the filing fee, and higher fees for record reproduction, record retrieval, and archive requests. The updated schedule includes a new $39 fee for archive requests involving multiple boxes. Higher fees will be required for certification of documents, and the return check fee will also rise.

Two more Japanese executives were indicted for their alleged roles in a conspiracy to fix the price of auto parts, said the Justice Department. A Northern Ohio U.S. District Court grand jury indicted Masao Hayashi and Kenya Nonoyama Nov. 20 for colluding to fix the price of anti-vibration rubber parts sold to Toyota and used to manufacture cars in the U.S., in violation of the Sherman Act. The executives each face a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of $1 million if found guilty. The indictment is part of a wide-ranging Justice Department investigation on price fixing of automotive parts, DOJ said. To date, 21 companies and 26 executives have been charged, including Hayashi and Nonoyama. The charges have resulted in $1.6 million in fines and 17 of the charged executives spending time in prison, said DOJ.

The Court of International Trade will hold a training workshop on new features and procedures in the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system on Dec. 11 from 2:30-4:30 p.m. in New York, N.Y. Two hours of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit will be provided. The workshop is not mandatory, but CIT encouraged attorneys who practice before CIT and their support staff to register. The format of the workshop will allow for practical application of skills and for development of skills with new features of the system, CIT said. To attend, complete a request (here) and email it to cmecf_training@cit.uscourts.gov, or fax it to (212) 264-3242 to the attention of Glenn Johnston.

Ohio-based Basco Manufacturing will pay $1.1 million to settle allegations that it transshipped and mislabeled merchandise to avoid paying antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions it imported from China, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. The case is part of a larger False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuit against four companies and two individuals that imported aluminum extrusions manufactured by Chinese company Tai Shan. The government chose to intervene in the suit against Basco, California-based C.R. Laurence Co.; Florida-based Southeastern Aluminum Products Inc.; Texas-based Waterfall Group LLC; New York-based Northeastern Aluminum Corp.; Northeastern’s owner, William Ma; and Robert Wingfield, the U.S. representative of Chinese exporter Tai Shan Golden Gain Aluminum Products Ltd.

A U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York sentenced on Nov. 15 Chinese National Zhifu Lin to 108 months imprisonment, following an illegal weapons trafficking conviction. The 27-year-old Lin allegedly sent dozens of semi-automatic handguns, rifles, shotguns, and military-style assault weapons to China from 2010-2012, in violation on the Arms Export Control Act. The weapons transferred are included in the U.S. Munitions List and require a State Department export license. Lin has been in federal custody since his April 2012 arrest in West Virginia.

A Texas man was sentenced to three years in prison following a guilty plea for "facilitating illegal honey imports by falsely declaring that the honey originated in countries other than China to avoid $37.9 million in anti-dumping duties," said ICE in a Nov. 14 press release. Jun Yang, who brokered the sale of "hundreds of container loads of Chinese-origin honey" he said originated from India or Malaysia, will begin his sentence in federal prison in January. Yang facilitated the scheme through his companies, National Honey and National Commodities Company, said ICE. The sentencing stems from the prosecution of two major honey suppliers announced in February (see 13022131). An AD duty order issued in 2001 assessed duties as high as 221 percent on Chinese honey. Current duties are assessed based on weight, and are set at $2.63 per kilogram for the China-wide entity. All honey is also charged an assessment fee of one cent per pound.

The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a securities fraud class action lawsuit related to an importer’s evasion of antidumping duties. Shah Rahman had argued that Kid Brands misled investors when it failed to immediately disclose that it was subject to a CBP focused assessment, and that its subsidiaries had mislabeled its products to disguise their origin and evade AD duties on wooden bedroom furniture from China. The company’s stock price tumbled from $9.24 to $2.97 per share as the news emerged over a five month span. The New Jersey U.S. District Court dismissed the case in October 2012, because Raman didn’t prove that executives at Kid Brands intended to deceive investors. On appeal, the 3rd Circuit wasn’t convinced by the testimony of six confidential witnesses, and upheld the dismissal.