Three people were charged with wildlife smuggling and related charges for their alleged roles in an international rhino horn smuggling ring in Newark, Miami and New York City, the Justice Department said Feb. 13. Federal grand juries in Newark and Miami indicted Zhifei Li for international smuggling of rhinoceros horns. Shusen Wei, a 44 year old Chinese business executive and an associate of Li, was charged with offering to bribe a federal agent in the Li case. Qing Wang was charged a related criminal complaint in federal court in the Southern District of New York for his role in smuggling libation cups carved from rhinoceros horns from New York to Li via Hong Kong, Justice said.

XL Specialty Insurance Company is appealing the Court of International Trade’s Jan. 2 ruling ordering payment of $1,826,531.80 in liquidated damages from lumber importer Millenium Lumber Distribution as a result of its failure to obtain export permits from the Canadian government, as required by the Softwood Lumber Agreement. XL Specialty Insurance was Millenium’s surety, and is liable for the damages. The surety is specifically appealing the court’s assessment of prejudgment interest.

The former president and CEO of GEM Manufacturing was ordered Feb. 7 to pay $1.1 million in fines and perform community service for his role in the illegal trade of protected black coral, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ashu Bhandari of the U.S. Virgin Islands pleaded guilty Nov. 7 to one count of false classification of goods. The black pearl imported from Taiwan was classified as “plastic” after GEM Manufacturing was unable to obtain legitimate CITES certificates, it said.

Alden Leeds appealed the Court of International Trade’s dismissal of its challenge of CBP’s deemed liquidation of its entries despite suspension of liquidation during an antidumping administrative review. CBP liquidated the entries at AD rate in effect from the previous administrative review, without waiting for the results of the ongoing review that eventually returned a lower AD rate. CIT had originally ruled in favor of Alden Leeds, finding that the liquidation did not actually occur because conditions for deemed liquidations were not met and liquidation was suspended. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned, agreeing with the government that the legality of the liquidation was irrelevant, and Alden Leeds was required to file a protest of the deemed liquidation to challenge it in court. The Supreme Court subsequently denied the case a hearing, and CIT dismissed the case in December.

The Court of International Trade accepted the remand redetermination of the 2008-09 antidumping duty administrative review of polyethylene retail carrier bags from Thailand (A-549-821), finding the International Trade Administration’s explanation of zeroing to be adequate, and a shift in how it applied the “transactions disregarded” rule for calculation of constructed value to be reasonable. Thai Bags Plastic Industries’ AD rate rose to 21.29 percent (from 2015 percent) as a result. CIT had remanded the final results in June.

The Court of International Trade is making “technical amendments” to its Forms 17 (Business Proprietary Information Certification) (here) and 18 (Notification of Termination of Access to Business Proprietary Information Pursuant To Rule 73.2(c)) (here), as well as its appendix of forms (here). On each form, references to “the Appendix on Access to Business Proprietary Information Pursuant to Rule 73.2(c) to the Rules” would be amended to refer to Administrative Order No. 02-01. The changes are effective March 1.

Fischer and Citrosuco appealed a Dec. 6 Court of International Trade ruling sustaining the final results of the 2009-10 antidumping duty administrative review of orange juice from Brazil (A-351-840). The Brazilian company and its affiliated U.S. importer had argued that the ITA improperly (1) included bunker fuel surcharges in Fischer’s surrogate freight rate; (2) used window period sales in calculating Fischer’s constructed value for certain months of the period of review; and (3) used zeroing to calculate Fischer’s dumping margin. The court had found against the companies on all issues.

The Court of International Trade remanded the International Trade Administration’s decision to use India as the surrogate country to value respondents’ inputs in the 2009-10 administrative review of polyethylene terephthalate film, sheet and strip from China (A-570-924). The ITA used World Bank data from 2008 to find India an economically comparable country eligible for selection, when domestic parties had placed 2009 World Bank data on the record. The 2009 data coincided with part of the period of review, and was relied upon by the ITA in another review that did not find India to be economically comparable to China. Importantly, the ITA had already formulated its list of comparable candidate countries by the time the 2009 data was placed on the record, but had not made its final surrogate country selection. The court ordered the ITA to either explain its decision to use the 2008 data, or use the 2009 data to select a surrogate country. CIT also sustained the use of an Indian company’s financial statements to calculate surrogate financial ratios.

The International Trade Administration assigned Gem Year the separate antidumping rate of 55.16 percent, instead of the China-wide AD rate of 206 percent originally assigned, in a remand redetermination of the 2008-10 administrative review of steel threaded rod from China (A-570-932) that was sustained by the Court of International Trade Feb. 7. During the review, the ITA found that Gem Year had no entries for which liquidation was suspended to review, ignoring Gem Year’s entries of subject merchandise that had been liquidated due to an error by an unaffiliated importer, and assigned it to the China-wide entity. But in a September 2012 ruling, CIT said the ITA’s position that liquidated entries are unreviewable was unjustified by the statute and the regulations, because both only refer to “entries.” In sustaining the remand redetermination, the court said there were no “substantive challenges” to the results.

The former secretary-treasurer of Local 1233 of the International Longshoreman’s Association pleaded guilty to embezzling $71,000 from the union, the Justice Department said. Gregory Taylor, 57, of Edison, N.J., pleaded guilty to an indictment (here) charging him with issuing a vacation check for $7,852 to himself without authorization. Taylor also admitted to embezzling an additional $63,148 in union funds while he was in control of the union’s finances. Court documents said Taylor admitted he had been removed from his elected position as secretary-treasurer in April 2010, but continued to write himself checks, including a $7,852 vacation check to which he was not entitled. Taylor admitted that between 2007 and 2010, while secretary-treasurer, he embezzled a total of $71,000 by improperly cashing duplicate paychecks, as well as other checks from the union’s operating account, including for unauthorized credit card expenditures. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Taylor is scheduled to be sentenced May 6.