Domestic furniture producers Ethan Allen Global, Inc. and Ethan Allen Operations, Inc. sued to gain a share of duties collected under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Act of 2000 (“Byrd Amendment,” or “CDSOA“), but the court dismissed their complaints.
On January 20, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Rudolf Cheung has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act in connection with the unlawful export of 55 military antennae from the U.S. to Singapore and Hong Kong.
In the August 2006 - July 2007 AD administrative review of polyethylene retail carrier bags from Thailand, the International Trade Administration assigned an adverse rate of 122.88% to KYD Inc., an importer of bags produced by two uncooperative Thai producers. The Court of International Trade twice remanded the rate calculation to the ITA, holding that the rate was not corroborated, supported by evidence, or relevant to KYD’s imports in the period of review, and noting that even for uncooperative respondents, the agency is still constrained by “commercial reality.”
Domestic producer of antifriction bearings (AFBs) Schaeffler Group USA, Inc. brought legal actions seeking a share of duties collected under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Act of 2000 (Byrd Amendment, or CDSOA). In the 1988 investigation by the International Trade Commission that led to the AD duty order on AFBs from Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Romania, Thailand, Singapore, and the U.K., Shaeffler responded to the ITC’s questionnaire, but declined to indicate to the ITC that it supported the AD petition.
Following the February 2008 - January 2009 AD administrative review of certain frozen warmwater shrimp from Vietnam, Vietnamese producer/exporters challenged the International Trade Administration’s use of zeroing in AD administrative reviews while having abandoned the practice in investigations, and multiple Vietnamese plaintiffs also challenged the ITA’s labor rate calculations; its surrogate values work-up and surrogate financial expense calculations; its denial of a request for revocation; and its rejection of a separate rate certification due to late filing.
The Justice Department has announced that Steve Kinder and his wife, Cornelia Joyce Kinder, and their two caviar companies, Kinder Caviar Inc. and Black Star Caviar Company, pleaded guilty to trafficking in and falsely labeling illegally harvested paddlefish. The two companies were in the business of exporting paddlefish eggs as caviar to customers in foreign countries.
Chinese exporter Shantou Red Garden Foodstuff Co., Ltd. challenged the International Trade Administration‘s decisions in the less-than-fair value investigation of certain frozen warmwater shrimp from China1 which was conducted from April through September 2003. Red Garden contested the ITA's: 1) use of adverse facts for cost data the firm was unable to obtain from one of its suppliers; 2) choice of surrogate values for shrimp and shrimp feed; 3) choice of surrogate financial ratios; 4) use of inaccurate production volume data for one supplier; 5) use of inappropriate labor rates; and 6) refusal to accept corrections to factors-of-production calculations submitted prior to verification.
On January 17, 2012, the Justice Department announced that Marubeni Corporation, a Japanese trading company, has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the Department and has agreed to pay a $54.6 million criminal penalty to resolve charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for its participation in a scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts.
On January 13, 2012, the Justice Department announced that a former research scientist, Wen Chyu Liu, was sentenced to 60 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $600,000 and pay a $25,000 fine for stealing trade secrets from Dow Chemical Company and selling them to companies in China, as well as committing perjury.
The Court of International Trade has upheld the results of a remand order from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in which the International Trade Commission determined anew that imports of lightweight thermal paper (LWTP) from Germany threaten the domestic industry with injury.