The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced three people have been sentenced for violations of the Lacey Act for illegally selling and transporting walrus ivory and polar bear hides between July 2010 and April 2011. The defendants purchased the parts in Alaska and illegally sold and transported them to other states and countries. One defendant was sentenced to 108 months imprisonment, another to 42 months imprisonment, and the last defendant to three years of probation from hunting and other business related to wildlife.

In a December 13, 2011 press release, the Justice Department announced that three Korean Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc. (HLDS) executives have agreed to plead guilty, serve prison time in the U.S., and pay a $25,000 criminal fine each for their participation in a series of conspiracies to rig bids and fix prices for the sale of optical disk drives.

In Applikon Biotechnology, Inc. v. U.S., the Court of International Trade ruled against U.S. Customs and Border Protection's classification of certain Bioreactor Systems under HTS heading 8419 as machinery that treats materials through temperature change. The CIT held instead that the Bioreactor Systems are classified as other machinery under heading 8479 because their principal function is to grow cells, not to regulate temperature, and this function is not specified elsewhere in Chapter 84.

According to a December 13, 2011 Justice Department press release, eight former executives and agents of Siemens AG and its subsidiaries have been charged and have agreed to pay more than $448.5 million in fines for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The defendants allegedly engaged in a scheme to bribe senior Argentine government officials to secure a $1 billion contract to produce national identity cards.

On December 8, 2011, Prosecutor John Molinelli of Bergen County, New Jersey announced the arrest of George Ortega, a man accused of embezzling approximately $1.6 million from ARGIX Direct, doing business as Passport CFS Logistics. Passport Logistics was a wholly-owned business unit of ARGIX Direct, whose primary business involved the transportation of shipping containers from various ports located in the northeastern U.S. to the Passport Logistics facility for stripping and separating the cargo prior to being placed in containers or over the road trailers for shipment to various locations throughout the country. An investigation revealed that beginning in January 2003 and continuing through May 2011, Ortega acted in a collusive manner with others while conducting a series of fraudulent billing schemes in addition to engaging in the direct theft of cash payments meant for the company.

According to a December 8, 2011 Justice Department press release, two executives of Luxembourg-based Cargolux Airlines International S.A. have each pleaded guilty and agreed to serve 13 months in prison for participating in a conspiracy to fix cargo rates for international air shipments.

Two companies with a challenge to the International Trade Administration’s practice of zeroing (eliminating non-dumped sales from the margin calculation) pending at the Court of International Trade sought to delay the adjudication of their case until four other cases that address the same issue, and that are at a more advanced stage, are definitively resolved. The companies, Myonic GmbH and New Hampshire Ball Bearings, Inc., argued that a stay would “promote judicial economy and enable all parties to conserve resources.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued a December 8, 2011 press release stating that a Texas business owner has pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of mail fraud and one count of trafficking in counterfeit circuit breakers. Elod Tamas "Nick" Toldy, 62, of Austin, Texas, owner and operator of Pioneer Breaker & Control Supply in Austin, and Nick's Sales, the business' online sales and marketing component, is scheduled to be sentenced in April.

The Justice Department has issued a December 5, 2011 press release announcing that Lin Feng Xu, an antique dealer in China, has pleaded guilty to smuggling and to violating the Endangered Species Act in connection with the illegal export of African elephant ivory in his carry-on luggage.

According to a December 6, 2011 Justice Department press release, two New Jersey men, Sanjay Anandani and Rohit Rohit, were charged in an indictment unsealed on December 1, 2011 in the Eastern District of New York, for their alleged roles in a conspiracy to import and traffic in counterfeit perfume.