On February 16, 2012, the Justice Department announced that Massound Habibion, co-owner of Online Micro LLC, pleaded guilty to willfully conspiring to illegally export computers from the U.S. to Iran through the United Arab Emirates without a license or government authorization, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Additionally, Mohsen Motamedian, another co-owner of Online Micro, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed the International Trade Commission’s assessment of civil penalties against Ninestar1 for failure to comply with cease and desist orders and a consent order2 issued in the original investigation of certain ink cartridges and components thereof (337-TA-565).
On February 14, 2012, the American Trucking Associations announced it filed a new lawsuit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s December 2011 final rule that makes the hours-of-service (HOS) regulations for commercial truck drivers more restrictive. ATA President and CEO Bill Graves states that the safety benefits of the HOS changes are outweighed by its costs, and that limited government and industry resources should instead focus on safety initiatives that will have a greater impact on highway safety. This filing at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia comes just weeks before the final rule takes effect on February 27, though a number of its provisions have a delayed compliance date of July 1, 2013.
On February 15, 2012, the Federal Maritime Commission announced that five compromise agreements have been reached for a total of $490,000 in civil penalties for alleged violations of the Shipping Act. The agreements were reached with eight non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOCCs) and related companies providing ocean transportation services.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control has released Enforcement Information for February 7, 2012 on a civil penalty for Teledyne Technologies Inc. According to OFAC, Teledyne Technologies Incorporated and its subsidiary, Teledyne RD Instruments, Inc. (“Teledyne”), have agreed to pay a mitigated $30,385 civil penalty to settle allegations of violations of the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations.
On February 8, 2012, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced that Hanjuan Jin, a former software engineer for Motorola, Inc. (now Motorola Solutions, Inc.) was found guilty of stealing Motorola trade secrets. Jin, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, possessed more than 1,000 electronic and paper Motorola proprietary documents when she was stopped by U.S. customs officials as she attempted to travel on a one-way ticket to China in February 2007.
The Court of International Trade has ruled against U.S. Customs and Border Protection's claim that customs broker Robert E. Landweer & Co. was liable to pay a $30,000 penalty for filing entries with incorrect dumping duty deposit rates and incorrectly identifying the supplier of the merchandise. The CIT dismissed the case as CBP did not specify the customs regulations Landweer violated and therefore failed to sufficiently exhaust administrative remedies.
The U.S. Embassy in Singapore has welcomed a February 10, 2012 ruling by a Singapore court in favor of the extradition of four Singaporeans who have been charged in the U.S. for violations involving the unlawful export of military antennas and radio frequency modules from the U.S. These components were later found in improvised explosive devices (IED) found in Iraq. The four Singaporeans, as well as one other person and four firms, were indicted for these charges in October 2011. Also in October 2011, the Bureau of Industry and Security added 15 parties located in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, and Iran to the Entity List for their engagement in schemes or facilitation of the diverting of U.S.-origin items through deceptive actions, including shifting/circuitous routes and false or omitted information on shipping documentation.
The Justice Department has announced that Seafood Solutions Inc., a California corporation, was sentenced to pay $1 million in fines and community service payments for its role in the false labeling of frozen fish fillets. The corporation was fined $700,000 and ordered to make a community service donation of $300,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The company was also sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to forfeit all remaining inventory of the falsely labeled fish and develop and implement a corporate compliance plan.
On February 8, 2011, the Justice Department announced that five individuals and five companies have been charged with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for their roles in a long-running effort to obtain U.S. trade secrets for the benefit of companies controlled by the Chinese government.