The Justice Department has announced that Gilberto Baez-Garcia has been sentenced to 24 months in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud the Export-Import Bank of more than $3.6 million. Baez was also sentenced to five years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $3,614,594 in restitution and $3,614,977 in forfeiture. According to court documents, Baez admitted that he and another El Paso exporter created false documents so Baez could obtain a fraudulent Ex-Im Bank loan and assisted others to obtain fraudulent Ex-Im loans. They stole the loan proceeds by transferring funds to Mexico and elsewhere. As a result, the loans went into default and caused the Ex-Im Bank to pay claims losses to the lending banks in the amount of $3,614,594.

SKF USA Inc. and its overseas affiliates successfully contested the final results of the May 2007- April 2008 antidumping duty administrative review of ball bearings and parts thereof from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK, challenging the International Trade Administration’s use of zeroing (excluding all non-dumped sales transactions) in margin calculations and its “15-day rule” for issuing liquidation instructions following final determinations.

The International Trade Administration assigned an adverse facts available (AFA) rate and denied separate rate status to a Chinese producer/exporter (Foshan Shunde Yongjian Housewares & Hardware Co., Ltd.) in the August 2007 - July 2008 antidumping duty administrative review of floor-standing metal-top ironing tables and certain parts thereof from China. (Without separate rate status, the company would be subject to the China-wide rate, usually higher than a separately calculated rate).

Domestic manufacturer Nucor Fastener Division challenged the negative preliminary injury determination by the International Trade Commission in its January 2006 - June 2009 AD and CV duty investigations of certain standard steel fasteners (CSSF) from China and Taiwan, and the Court of International Trade remanded the determination to the agency. The court noted that the ITC had concluded that “there is no reasonable indication that an industry in the United States is materially injured or threatened…by reason of imports” of CSSF from China and Taiwan despite reports of lost revenues from five out of six U.S. producers surveyed. The court particularly faulted the ITC’s reliance on “manifestly incomplete import data” as “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion,” noting that the agency’s statement that its limited import volume data were comprehensive was “a complete failure to consider an important aspect of the problem.” (Slip Op. 11-104, dated August 11, 2011, public version posted subsequently)

A Taiwanese producer/exporter challenged the International Trade Administration’s use of invoice date to define the dates of its U.S. sales in the May 2008 - April 2009 AD administrative review of certain circular welded steel pipes and tubes from Taiwan. Yieh Phui Enterprise Co. argued that few of its terms of sale changed after contract date and that in other, similar cases, the ITA used a date other than invoice date. However, the Court of International Trade agreed with the ITA’s “detailed, well-reasoned response” to each of Yieh Phui’s arguments, noting in particular that the agency observed frequent sales terms changes between contract date and invoice date. Accordingly, the court upheld the agency’s use of its standard sale-dating practice for Yieh Phui. (Slip Op. 11-107, dated August 24, 2011, public version posted subsequently)

The Supreme Court has stated that it will hear a case involving Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd., and Shell Transport and Trading Company PLC. The case involves whether corporations are immune from tort liability under the 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.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas has announced that Loren Willis from Florida, has been convicted for his part in a conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act. According to court information, in September 2010, Willis and one of his co-defendants traveled from Florida to Texas to harvest alligator gar for the purpose of selling the fish domestically and in Japan. Willis' co-defendant has pleaded guilty to altering documentation submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service to reflect that the fish were captive bred (which does not require inspection prior to export) rather than harvested in the wild.

The Court of International Trade has ruled that licensed customs broker Guillermo Lizarraga is entitled to reimbursement of attorney fees and other expenses after successfully challenging U.S. Customs and Border Protection's 2008 deactivation and suspension of his entry filer code for alleged misuse. The CIT states Lizarraga is entitled to reimbursement as CBP's¹ position was not substantially justified and because there are no special circumstances that make such an award unjust.

A patent holder for a design of coaxial cable connectors (John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. dba PPC, Inc.) lost an appeal of a section 337 ruling by the International Trade Commission that held that spending funds on patent infringement litigation does not amount to investing in a domestic manufacturing industry. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit noted that Section 337 only protects against infringement of valid and enforceable U.S. patents by imports if a domestic U.S. industry “exists or is in the process of being established,” as shown by investment in plant, equipment, labor, capital, engineering, R & D, or licensing. PPC claimed it incurred litigation costs to protect its patents for the purpose of later seeking license deals. The court conceded that some enforcement litigation costs may support a finding that a domestic licensing industry exists, but agreed with the ITC that "allowing patent infringement litigation activities alone to constitute a domestic industry would place the bar…so low as to effectively render it meaningless." (Appeal No. 2010-1536, dated 10/04/11)

After Amsted Industries, Inc. licensed its secret railcar wheel manufacturing processes to a Chinese manufacturer, a different firm, TianRui Group Company Limited hired key employees of the licensee (who had signed confidentiality agreements) and began exporting wheels made with the Amsted process to the U.S. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a section 337 ruling by the International Trade Commission that TianRui had misappropriated Amsted’s processes, and also agreed with the ITC that the domestic U.S. industry was injured or threatened by the resulting imports, even though the production processes at issue are not currently in use within the U.S. (A dissenting justice argued that the misappropriation of trade secrets occurred in China and concluded that “United States trade secret law simply does not extend to acts occurring entirely in China.“) (Appeal No. 2010-1395, dated 10/11/11)