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.
Chinese producer/exporter Since Hardware (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. and domestic petitioner Home Products International, Inc. challenged the results of the August 2007 - July 2008 AD administrative review of floor-standing, metal-top ironing tables from China. The Court of International Trade directed the International Trade Administration to recalculate the surrogate value for labor (as the labor rate data had excluded India), but upheld the ITA’s other determinations.
There are two test cases pending in the Court of International Trade, in which Victoria's Secret Direct, LLC and Lerner New York, Inc. (retailer New York & Company) are challenging U.S. Customs and Border Protection's classification of a women's garment called a shelf bra cami or bra top camisole. These garments have a tank top or camisole silhouette and contain a built-in brassiere.
The Justice Department has announced that Nadeem Akhtar, a Pakistani national and lawful permanent resident of the U.S., was sentenced to 37 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release for conspiring to commit export violations and to defraud the U.S. in connection with a scheme to illegally export nuclear-related materials.
On January 6, 2012, the Justice Department announced that three Philippine nationals have been arrested on charges of importing defense articles without a license, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA). According to the complaint, this case is part of an FBI investigation of transnational Asian organized crime groups involved in the illicit trafficking of firearms.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced that Thomas Jefferson and James Robinson have pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess stolen goods from a foreign shipment, in connection with the theft of aluminum, nickel and other metal that had been imported through the Port of Baltimore. Another individual, Alan Verschleisser, also pleaded guilty to the same charge in December 2011. The defendants' illegal scheme caused $2,611,314 in losses.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has announced that FedEx Express has agreed to pay a $370,000 civil penalty to settle allegations that it committed six violations of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) relating to FedEx’s provision of freight forwarding services to exporters for unlicensed exports.