A waste-recycling company based in Englewood, Colo., and two of its executives, were convicted Dec. 21 of multiple counts of mail and wire fraud, obstruction and environmental crimes related to illegally disposing electronic waste and smuggling, said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Executive Recycling Inc. and its officers allegedly defrauded government and businesses by saying that it was disposing of cathode ray tubes (CRT) using Environmental Protection Agency-approved methods in the U.S., while it was actually exporting the waste abroad.

The Court of International Trade rejected plaintiff Tianjin Magnesium International’s request for reconsideration of CIT’s Nov. 21 affirmance of a remand redetermination of the 2008-09 antidumping administrative review of pure magnesium from China (A-570-832). In affirming the remand, CIT had said TMI committed fraud during the AD review in an attempt to obtain lower dumping margins, and continued its misleading conduct during the court case by continuing to argue points that it had failed to exhaust during the review, ordering TMI to pay costs. Despite its failure to comment on the remand redetermination, TMI requested reconsideration because it said it had no opportunity to comment. CIT rejected that argument, noting that the schedule for a response had been extended at TMI’s request. “As a final courtesy, TMI is once again warned that its frivolous conduct is unacceptable and potentially within the scope of the court’s authority to impose sanctions,” threatened CIT.

The Court of International Trade remanded aspects of the 2008-09 antidumping administrative review of tapered roller bearings from China (A-570-601), including the International Trade Administration’s determination that respondent Peer Bearing Company-Changshan’s (CPZ) bearings processed in Thailand are of Chinese origin, and are therefore subject merchandise. The ITA relied on irrelevant criteria in finding the bearings to be of Chinese origin, such as whether the Thai bearings were of the same “class or kind” of merchandise as the Chinese parts, CIT said. The agency also failed to back up its claim that the Thai processing did not add significant value, it said. CIT ordered the ITA to rely only on “criteria relevant to whether the parts exported to Thailand were substantially transformed” in its redetermination.

Two Singaporeans were extradited from Singapore to stand trial in Washington, D.C., in connection with an alleged fraud conspiracy involving the unlawful export of 55 military antennas from the U.S. to Singapore and Hong Kong, said the Bureau of Industry and Security.

The Court of International Trade sustained the partial application of adverse facts available (AFA) to determine Mueller Comercial’s AD rate, despite Mueller’s full cooperation, in the 2008-09 antidumping administrative review of circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from Mexico (A-201-805). The International Trade Administration had used AFA on incomplete cost data needed from one of Mueller’s suppliers. CIT agreed with the ITA’s argument that the uncooperative supplier would have benefited from a lower AD rate without the partial application of AFA, and said its use was justified, despite the fact that Mueller cooperated.

The Court of International Trade ordered a customs broker to pay a $19,000 penalty for violations of several provisions of the Customs regulations, including failing to notify the importer of record when doing business with an unlicensed person; conducting business without a valid power of attorney; misclassification of entries; and failure to exercise due diligence and responsible supervision and control. The customs broker failed to respond to any of CBP’s pre-penalty notices, penalty notices, and final demands for payments, and did not respond to any notices or motions in this case, so was declared to be in default. As the defendant was in default, CIT took all of CBP’s factual allegations as true, and granted CBP’s motion to collect the penalties.

Eli Lilly agreed to pay over $29 million without admitting or denying allegations that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) through improper payments to foreign government officials to win millions of dollars of business in Russia, Brazil, China, and Poland, said the Securities and Exchange Commission in a press release. Eli Lilly used a Russian subsidiary to pay millions of dollars to third parties chosen by government customers or distributors that rarely provided any services and in some cases funneled money to government officials, according to the SEC complaint against the pharmaceutical company. Transactions with offshore or government-affiliated entities did not receive specialized or closer review for possible FCPA violations, said the SEC. Paperwork was accepted at face value and little was done to assess whether the terms or circumstances surrounding a transaction suggested the possibility of foreign bribery, it said.

Xun Wang, a former Managing Director of PPG Paints Trading (Shanghai) Co., a wholly-owned Chinese subsidiary of United States-based PPG Industries, was sentenced Dec. 20 to a year in prison for conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, said the Department of Justice. In addition to the prison time, Judge Sullivan ordered Wang to pay a $100,000 fine and to perform 500 hours of community service.

An Iranian corporation, its subsidiaries and several of its officers and business partners have been charged in Alexandria, Va., accused of allegedly exporting more than $30 million in computer goods from U.S. companies to Iran in violation of trade sanctions imposed on Iran, the Justice Department said.

The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s decision to include plaintiffs Jiangsu Changbao Steel Tube and Jiangsu Changbao Precision Tube as part of the China-wide entity, with an AD rate of 99.14 percent, in the antidumping investigation of oil country tubular goods from China (A-570-943). The ITA had found that misrepresentations by company officials during an on-site verification, as well as discrepancies in the company’s accounting programs, impeached the credibility of all statements made by Changbao officials and supported by Changbao’s accounting records. The ITA then disregarded all submissions by Changbao during the investigation, including the company’s separate rate application, resulting in the China-wide rate.