The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has decided to vacate the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s final rule requiring motor carriers that are substantially non-compliant with the hours-of-service (HOS) regulations to install electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs) to monitor their compliance. This case was brought before the Court by three commercial truck drivers and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) who petitioned for review of the final rule.
On August 25, 2011, Gibson Guitar Corp. issued a press release to announce that the Justice Department has raided and temporarily shut down two Gibson facilities in the Department's enforcement of the Lacey Act Amendments. According to Gibson, the Justice Department has suggested that Gibson's use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal.
On August 26, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Roger Charles Day Jr. was found guilty of leading an international conspiracy to sell more than $4.4 million in nonconforming and defective parts to the Department of Defense (DoD) and of smuggling gold out of the U.S. into Mexico.
On August 25, 2011, the Treasury Department announced that JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A of New York has agreed to remit $88,300,000 to settle potential civil liability for apparent violations of several sanctions regulations over a six year period.
A Chinese manufacturer/exporter challenged the International Trade Administration’s denial of a request for a changed circumstance review to reconsider the use of zeroing in the investigation which led to the AD duty order for diamond sawblades from China. The reason for the request was that after ITA made its final AD determination (but before it issued the AD order), it announced1 that it would no longer use zeroing in investigations. Nevertheless, the ITA argued that it did not need to reconsider its use of zeroing in the sawblades investigation, because its final AD duty rate determination pre-dated the policy change. The Court of International Trade agreed with the ITA, finding the agency’s denial of a changed circumstance review was “not unreasonable.”
On August 24, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Google Inc. has agreed to forfeit $500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the U.S., which resulted in the unlawful importation of controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the U.S.
The Court of International Trade has ruled that an importer whose identity is alleged to have been stolen and used by another to enter goods that never came into the importer's possession, may not sue for a refund of liquidated damages as the importer failed to seek timely relief under 28 USC 1581(a) by protesting CBP's Notice of Redelivery. CIT stated that had the importer protested the Notice, it could have raised the exact issues raised in this suit.
On August 18, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Epps Shipping Company, a Liberian corporation doing business out of Puerto Rico has been sentenced to pay a $700,000 criminal penalty and has been placed on five years of supervised probation for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and making false statements to U.S. Coast Guard inspectors. Epps owned and controlled the M/V Carib Vision, a commercial ship that was engaged in the transportation of molasses throughout the Caribbean region. A Coast Guard investigation found that the crew of the vessel used the emergency bilge discharge system to dump its oily waste directly overboard without first processing it through the ship’s pollution prevention equipment as required. During probation, Epps will have to implement a comprehensive Environmental Compliance Plan to continuously monitor and evaluate pollution prevention from any ship it owns or operates.
On August 18, 2011, the Justice Department announced that Donald Cone of Maryland has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for his role in a sophisticated conspiracy to import and sell counterfeit Cisco-branded computer networking equipment.
In Arko Foods International, Inc., v. U.S., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a 2009 Court of International Trade judgment that although mellorine is a dairy product, it is not an article of milk as milk doesn't provide its essential character. Instead, the frozen dairy product it is classifiable as other edible ice.