Regulatory attorney Brett Shumate left his position as partner at Jones Day on Jan. 17, the firm said in a notice to the Court of International Trade. Shumate had appeared as counsel for various companies in the massive Section 301 litigation before the trade court. Shumate joined Jones Day as a partner in 2019 after serving as the deputy assistant attorney general for the federal programs branch in DOJ's civil division.
Jacob Kopnick
Jacob Kopnick, Associate Editor, is a reporter for Trade Law Daily and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and International Trade Today. He joined the Warren Communications News team in early 2021 covering a wide range of topics including trade-related court cases and export issues in Europe and Asia. Jacob's background is in trade policy, having spent time with both CSIS and USTR researching international trade and its complexities. Jacob is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Public Policy.
A Miami real estate broker pleaded guilty to scheming to violate U.S. sanctions by helping sanctioned Russian oligarchs Viktor Perevalov and Valeri Abramov rent, sell and transfer ownership of their South Florida condominiums, DOJ announced. The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined the broker, Roman Sinyavsky, and his firm, Family International Realty, over $1 million for the sanctions evasion (see 2501160051).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A group of importers, led by Tenaris Bay City Inc., will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's finding that it had sufficient U.S. industry support to launch the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on oil country tubular goods from Argentina, Mexico, South Korea and Russia. After previously remanding the issue, the trade court said the agency adequately addressed contrary evidence (see 2412110010). On remand, Commerce said it appropriately used industry source data and that finishing operations weren't double counted (Tenaris Bay City Inc. v. United States, CIT # 22-00343).
Importer AM Stone & Cabinets filed a pair of complaints at the Court of International Trade, arguing that its products were unlawfully found to have been made in China based on adverse facts available, despite the company's full cooperation and a lack of evidence showing that its products were made in China (AM Stone & Cabinets v. United States, CIT #s 24-00241, -00243).
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) said comparability findings are coming by Sept. 1, 2025, for "all harvesting nations that did not submit an application for a comparability finding" and all harvesting nations the NMFS has already preliminarily said will be denied a comparability finding. The announcement came as part of a settlement of a lawsuit from three wildlife advocacy groups against the NMFS's failure to ban fish or fish products exported from fisheries that don't meet U.S. bycatch standards under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (Natural Resources Defense Council v. Gina Raimondo, CIT # 24-00148).
Former International Trade Commissioner chair and current commissioner Rhonda Schmidtlein will join WilmerHale as a partner in the international trade, investment and market access practice group, the firm announced. The ITC, in a concurrent press release, said the commissioner will step down Feb. 1. Schmidtlein was confirmed to the ITC in 2014, previously serving as chair for 17 months in 2017-18.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The International Trade Commission "largely ignored" data trends in finding there to be significant price effects and an adverse impact caused by shipments of aluminum lithographic printing plates from China and Japan, exporter Fujifilm Corp. argued in a Jan. 15 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The company also challenged the commission's decision to include its affiliate, Fujifilm-Greenwood, in the domestic industry and finding of significant adverse volume effects (Fujifilm North America Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00251).
The Commerce Department defended its finding that currency undervaluation in Vietnam is specific to the traded goods sector, submitting remand results to the Court of International Trade on Jan. 15. The agency addressed various points the trade court sent back for further explanation, including Commerce's statutory authority for its specificity finding and the information the agency found missing from the record as its basis for using facts available (Kumho Tire (Vietnam) Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00397).