The Justice Department has announced that Shiu-Min Hsu, former chairman of a Taiwan aftermarket auto lights manufacturer, has agreed to plead guilty for his participation in an international conspiracy to fix the prices of aftermarket auto lights.
On February 29, 2012, the Justice Department announced that Australian David Levick and his company, ICM Components Inc., have been indicted for conspiring to export sensitive military and other technology from the U.S. to Iran, including components with applications in missiles, drones, torpedoes and helicopters.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a lower court's ruling that denied CBP's classification of certain finished flavoring products as soups or broths under HTS heading 2104. The Court instead ruled in favor of the importer based on its consideration of several factors which revealed that the flavorings were not principally used for soups and broths but could be used in many different ways. Thus, the Court ruled the flavorings are classifiable as food preparations under heading 2106.
On February 24, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged three oil services executives with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by participating in a bribery scheme to obtain illicit permits for oil rigs in Nigeria in order to retain business under lucrative drilling contracts, thus violating the anti-bribery, internal controls, and false records provisions of the Securities Exchange Act.
The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls states that by notice from the Department of the Air Force on February 24, 2012, the debarment of Ceva Logistics LLC a/k/a EGL, Inc. from contracting with an agency of the government is terminated. However, effective immediately, DDTC is debarring other freight forwarders from government contracting by action of February 16, 2012: (1) BAX Global Inc.: Irvine, CA; (2) Kuhne and Nagel International AG, Schindellegi, Switzerland; (3) Panalpina Welttransport (Holding) AG: Basel, Switzerland; (4) Panalpina Inc.: Morristown, NJ; and (5) Schenker AG: Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland. These five entities are ineligible to contract with an agency of the U.S. Government and are therefore generally ineligible in accordance with Section 120.1 of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
According to various press sources, the Port of Los Angeles has filed a brief with the Supreme Court, urging it not to overturn four of the Port's Clean Truck Program concession requirements that were upheld by the lower Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The Port filed this brief in response to a petition filed by the American Trucking Associations (ATA) in December 2011 which sought to appeal the lower court's ruling.
The Supreme Court will hear a case on February 28, 2012 related to whether corporations can be sued in U.S. courts for violations of human rights committed abroad. This case involves Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd., and Shell Transport and Trading Company PLC and considers whether corporations are immune from tort liability under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute (ATS, 28 USC 1350) for violations of nations' laws, such as for torture, extrajudicial executions or genocide; or if corporations may be sued in the same manner as any other private party defendant under the ATS for such egregious violations.
On February 22, 2012, the World Bank announced the debarment of Alstom Hydro France and Alstom Network Schweiz AG (Switzerland) in addition to their affiliates, for a period of three years following Alstom's acknowledgment of misconduct in relation to the World Bank-financed Zambia Power Rehabilitation Project. In 2002, Alstom made an improper payment of €110,000 (about $147,510) to an entity controlled by a former senior government official for consultancy services in relation to the hydropower project. During the debarment period of Alstom Hydro France and Alstom Network Schweiz AG, Alstom SA and its other affiliates are conditionally non-debarred. Under the Settlement Agreement, the companies commit to cooperating with the World Bank’s Integrity Vice Presidency and continuing to improve their internal compliance program. The debarment qualifies for cross-debarment by other multilateral development banks under the Agreement of Mutual Recognition of Debarments that was signed in April 2010.
The Justice Department announced on February 23, 2012 that Albert “Jack” Stanley, a former chairman and chief executive officer of Kellogg, Brown & Root Inc. (KBR), was sentenced on February 23, 2012 to 30 months in prison for conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by participating in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts and for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud as part of a separate kickback scheme. Stanley has also been ordered to serve three years of supervised release following the prison term and to pay $10.8 million in restitution to KBR, the victim of the separate kickback scheme.
In the August 2007 - January 2008 new shipper review of certain frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, producer/exporter Hiep Thanh claimed it had no knowledge that certain sales it made to a Mexican purchaser would remain in the U.S. as consumption entries. Hiep Thanh therefore challenged the International Trade Administration's inclusion of the sales in the company's U.S. sales list and margin calculation. In two remands, the Court of International Trade faulted the ITA for “too many internal inconsistencies and unexplained conclusions,” ordering it to clarify its analysis and provide a definition for its use of the term "exportation."