Two New York residents were sentenced in the U.S. District Court for Western New York for their part in a conspiracy to import and distribute counterfeit Nike sneakers from China. Xiao Cheng Lin was sentenced to one year in prison and a $7,500 fine, and her husband Ling Zen Hu got six months in prison and will pay a $6,000 fine. Judge Richard Arcara’s sentences came in well below 37 to 46 months recommended for the crime, despite the government’s arguments to the contrary. The defendants’ children had submitted letters to the court warning of the hardship a harsh sentence would cause the family, and Congresswoman Grace Meng, D-N.Y., contributed a letter as well.

A man from Sierra Leone was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, N.Y. for brokering the supply of “yellowcake” uranium to Iran in violation of U.S. export laws, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. Patrick Campbell of Freetown, Sierra Leone, faces up to 20 years in prison after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement undercover agent negotiated the uranium shipments and then convinced Campbell to come to the U.S. to finalize negotiations.

Miami-based customs broker pleaded guilty Aug. 23 to Lacey Act violations, after it acted as broker on an entry of caviar but didn’t file the required declaration, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. Data Freight Corporation admitted it didn’t file Fish and Wildlife Service Form 3-177 for 468 grams of Siberian sturgeon caviar that was imported in 2011 and 2012, even though it knew or should have that the declaration was required.

A man from Kent, Wash., pleaded guilty on Aug. 21 to trafficking over $500,000 in counterfeit luxury vehicle parts and accessories, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Washington. According to the plea agreement, Guoxiong Xian owns 3 Ways, which sells auto parts like license plate frames, automobile logos and other decorative items over the internet. From November 2008 to April 2013, Xian sold around $538,000 worth of Chinese counterfeit automobile accessories, bearing trademarks that belong to companies such as BMW, Mercedes and Toyota. In January 2013, Xian sold various counterfeit accessories to an undercover agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the release said.

The Court of International Trade again remanded Commerce’s selection of India as the surrogate country in the 2009-10 antidumping duty administrative review of polyethylene terephthalate film, sheet and strip from China (A-570-924). Commerce again declined to consider the most recent economic data on the two countries when making its decision. The court had already remanded on that issue in February (see 13020802). This time, Commerce rejected the data on procedural grounds, because it purportedly didn’t have enough time to review the data. This was despite the fact that the data had been placed on the record before the regulatory deadline for submitting factual information. The court agreed with Dupont Teijin’s argument that Commerce was effectively creating a new deadline that isn’t specified in the regulations, and remanded for a second time.

A Chinese national pleaded guilty Aug. 19 to attempting to illegally export large quantities of aerospace grade carbon fiber to China in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New York said. Ming Suan Zhang, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, was arrested after trying to acquire a sample of the carbon fiber, which a news release described as a “high-tech material used frequently in the military, defense and aerospace industries.” The carbon fiber could be detrimental to U.S. foreign policy or national security, and is closely regulated by the Department of Commerce “to combat nuclear proliferation and terrorism,” the release said.

Importers of goods from China and Vietnam who are subject to antidumping duties must pay at the exporter’s rate, and not the producer’s, ruled the Court of International Trade Aug. 21. That’s the case even if the exporter isn’t a respondent and gets assigned the China- or Vietnam-wide rate, because the country-wide rate serves as a specific AD rate to every non-separate rate exporter, CIT said. Because the regulations prefer specific exporter rates to producer rates, subject merchandise produced by a company with a low separate rate, but exported by a company that doesn’t prove separate rate status, will enter at the exporter’s high China- or Vietnam-wide rate, the court said.

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 15 remanded the final results of the 2009-10 antidumping duty administrative review on activated carbon from China, citing several issues with the average rates assigned to non-individually reviewed “separate rate” companies. Because the rates for the only individually reviewed companies were de minimis, Commerce based the $0.28/kg average rate for seven other companies on rates calculated for different companies in a previous review. That’s too far from the commercial reality of the separate rate companies, the court said. CIT also remanded the Commerce’s decision to use a “specific” per kilogram rate for one of the separate rate companies, as well as the agency’s calculation of surrogate values for inputs.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a bid by Ashley Furniture and Ethan Allan for funds under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA, also known as the Byrd Amendment). The two domestic furniture companies argued they were eligible for antidumping and countervailing duties paid under the wooden bedroom furniture from China orders, simply because they responded when the International Trade Commission asked whether they supported the original AD/CVD petitions. Ashley Furniture had answered that it opposed the petition, while Ethan Allan checked the box for “take no position.” According to the two companies, any sort of response qualified as support because it helped the ITC in the investigation. Like the Court of International Trade, the appeals court rejected the argument. Although in a similar case the court had ruled Chez Sidney qualified for CDSOA funds even though it took no position in the final phase questionnaire, that case was different because Chez Sidney checked the box for support of AD/CV duties during the preliminary phase, CAFC said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed on Aug. 19 the Court of International Trade’s dismissal of an antidumping duty lawsuit on steel nails from China. The lower court had declined to rule on Itochu Building Products’ challenge to the revocation date for four types of nails, citing a failure to fully argue its case before Commerce. Itochu had only argued for an earlier revocation date before the preliminary results of the changed circumstances review, and not in the run-up to the final results, so it didn’t exhaust its administrative remedies, CIT had said (see 12092127). But the appeals court reversed on Aug. 19, because submitting comments after Commerce had already rejected Itochu’s arguments at the preliminary stage would have served no purpose, and actually would have harmed the company.