On February 6, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Ulrich Davis, a former manager of a Netherlands-based freight-forwarding company, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. by violating a Bureau of Industry and Security Temporary Denial Order and facilitating the illegal export of goods to Iran. The count to which Davis pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is currently scheduled for May 15, 2012.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has announced that three companies agreed to pay a total of $ 35,200 in civil penalties to settle allegations that each violated the antiboycott provisions of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The companies are JAS Forwarding Inc., Rexnord Industries LLC, and Weiss-Rohlig USA LLC.
On February 6, 2012, the Justice Department announced that it entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with Smith & Nephew Inc., a medical device company, to resolve improper payments the company and certain of its affiliates allegedly made physicians employed by government institutions, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
The Court of International Trade has upheld the determination by the International Trade Commission to deny the status of an “affected domestic producer” or ADP to Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. because in a 2003 questionnaire response, the firm expressed opposition to the AD petition on wooden bedroom furniture from China.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on January 30, 2012 that Manuel Gomez Barba was sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison for illegally exporting firearms, one of which was used to murder an ICE special agent in 2011.
The Justice Department has announced that two Japanese suppliers of automotive electrical components -- Yazaki Corporation and DENSO Corporation -- have agreed to plead guilty and pay a total of $548 million in criminal fines for their involvement in multiple price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracies in the sale of parts to automobile manufacturers in the U.S. Four executives, all Japanese nationals, have also agreed to plead guilty and to serve prison time in the U.S.
On January 24, 2012, U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted a second video on the conviction of a Mexican importer who was sentenced to 70 months in prison and a $7.8 million fine for the illegal transshipment through Mexico of Chinese-origin wire hangers subject to antidumping (AD) duties. By falsely claiming that the hangers were NAFTA-originating, the importer avoided the high AD duties and paid a zero or low NAFTA duty instead. (See ITT's Online Archives 11102646 for summary of CBP's first video, posted on 08/29/11.)
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Camp (R-MI) has issued a statement welcoming the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to grant an extension for filing a rehearing request in the ongoing litigation about the application of the countervailing duty laws to non-market economies (NMEs) such as China. Camp stated that the Administration must pursue all available legal avenues to overturn the underlying decision, which he believes was wrongly decided.
Domestic manufacturers grouped together in 2005 to file an antidumping duty petition against diamond sawblade imports from Korea and China, and later successfully challenged a determination by the International Trade Commission that their industry was not threatened with injury by such imports.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York has announced that Richard Phillips pleaded guilty on January 18, 2012 to attempting to export carbon fiber to Iran in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. When sentenced, Phillips faces a maximum of 20 years’ imprisonment.