The Justice Department has announced that George Gonzalez, a former chief commercial officer of Cielos Airlines, a Peruvian air cargo carrier, pleaded guilty for his role in a conspiracy to fix surcharges on air cargo shipments from the U.S. to South and Central America.
On November 1, 2011, the Department of Transportation's Inspector General announced that Medchem Corporation (Medchem) and Hasan Ibrahim were indicted in U.S. District Court, San Francisco, California, on charges of illegal transportation of hazardous materials, attempted placement of destructive substances on aircraft, attempted smuggling of goods, and failure to file export information.
The Justice Department has announced that a Taiwan aftermarket auto lights manufacturer, its U.S.-based subsidiary distributor, and its chairman have been indicted for participating in an international conspiracy to fix the prices of aftermarket auto lights.
Domestic producers Clearon Corporation and Occidental Chemical Corporation challenged the results of the June 2006 - May 2007 AD administrative review of chlorinated isocyanurates from China, objecting to the values used for urea, steam coal and ammonia gas by-products: the International Trade Administration sought a voluntary remand on the ammonia gas value as well.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced that three people have been indicted for misclassifying Chinese honey as rice fructose in order to avoid more than $1 million in antidumping duties. The three defendants, Chin Shih Chou (Taiwan), Qiao Chu (China), and Wei-Tang Lo (California) represented a number of honey importation companies in executing the scheme. They mislabeled shipping containers filled with the Chinese honey to avoid a $2.63 per kilo antidumping duty. Once the containers of honey passed through customs, they were forwarded to a warehouse, washed of all markings, and relabeled as amber honey, and sold to domestic producers.
The Court of International Trade once again remanded to the International Trade Administration the agency‘s “separate rate” determination for Chinese producer/exporter Since Hardware (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., in the August 2006 - July 2007 AD administrative review of floor-standing metal-top ironing tables and certain parts thereof from China.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida has announced that Elias Garcia and Maria Plancarte have pled guilty to charges of conspiring to violate the federal Lacey Act by smuggling jaguar skins from Mexico and trafficking in them in the U.S. The jaguar is listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Under cover of a plant seed company Garcia and Plancarte jointly operated, they sold two jaguar pelts to undercover Fish and Wildlife Service agents and planned a future sale of up to 10 jaguar pelts to be smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. Their sentencing is scheduled for March 2012, where each defendant faces a five year prison term, a criminal fine of up to $250,000, and a period of up to three years of supervised release.
The Court of International Trade has ruled in favor of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Ford Motor Company v. U.S., denying Ford's claims for a refund of duties under NAFTA after untimely filing its NAFTA certificates of origin beyond the statutory one year limit. The CIT agreed with CBP that a valid refund claim exists only when the importer has filed all required documentation. As such, all components of a claim, including copies of the certificates of origin, must be filed within one year of importation.
In Cisco Systems, Inc. v. U.S., the Court of International Trade denied U.S. Customs and Border Protection's motion to dismiss challenges to its classification of "networking equipment" in protests filed by Cisco Systems, Inc. Customs argued that Cisco's protests were invalid because the use of the phrase "networking equipment" is too vague. However, the CIT stated that technical precision is not required in protests and that Customs could have sought more information from Cisco to evaluate its protests.
Korean producer Union Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd. challenged the International Trade Administration’s model match, which made price comparisons between painted and laminated products, and its use of zeroing (disregarding non-dumped sales transactions in the margin calculation) in the August 2005 - July 2006 AD duty administrative review of certain corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products from Korea. Following two remands, the Court of International Trade affirmed the ITA’s revised model match, in which it ultimately conceded it would not treat painted, non-laminated corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products as identical to more costly laminated products in U.S.-to-home-market price comparisons.