Global law firm Baker McKenzie became another in a long line of law firms to drop its practice in Russia, announcing March 15 that its Russian office will detach from the firm and form its own independent practice. The firm, which has over 260 lawyers and staff in Russia, follows at least 25 other international law firms that have closed practices in Russia. Other firms to recently announce a similar move include White & Case, Hogan Lovells and DLA Piper.
The Commerce Department gave itself more time to consider whether to begin an anti-circumvention inquiry on solar cells from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, in a March 9 memo. The petition alleges that Chinese solar panel manufacturers have shifted manufacturing to Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam to circumvent the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on solar cells and modules from China (see 2202090060).
The U.S. tapped former State Department attorney John Crook to serve as an arbitrator in a case at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, ICSID revealed on Feb. 25. The case was launched in November 2021 by Canadian energy company TC Energy Corporation along with TransCanada Pipelines Limited, when the company filed its request for arbitration. Crook worked for nearly 30 years in the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser and currently serves as a judge on NATO's Administrative Tribunal. Prior to Crook accepting his appointment, Henri Alvarez agreed to serve as the arbitrator for the claimants.
Federal prosecutor Andrew Adams will lead Task Force KleptoCapture, the interagency group set up to enforce U.S. sanctions against Russia (see 2203020044), Attorney General Merrick Garland announced March 3. Speaking to the ABA Institute on White Collar Crime, Garland also discussed steps DOJ is taking to enforce its recent wave of sanctions measures. Adams is co-chief of the Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit for the Office of U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York, per his LinkedIn profile. Adams has led various asset forfeiture and organized crime cases, touched off by his leadership of a team in 2015 that recovered a Stradivarius violin stolen in 1980, Reuters reported. He also led the prosecution of alleged Russian crime syndicate leader Razhden Shulaya.
A host of law firms have said that they are dropping Russian clients and reviewing work related to Russia to comply with the spate of global sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, per reports from Reuters and Law.com. Firms such as White & Case, Baker McKenzie, and Morgan Lewis & Bockius -- all with offices in Russia -- are working to gauge sanctions exposure due to their dealings with Russian clients and flush the exposure from their business.
The Department of Justice this week released the 2021 year in review for its Fraud Section, detailing the agency's work on cases involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The review includes statistics on prosecuted FCPA cases, information on new officials who joined the FCPA Unit last year, and a list of “significant” corporate resolutions, individual indictments and guilty pleas.
OCP North America, the U.S. subsidiary of a Moroccan fertilizer exporter, penned a letter to U.S. farmers urging their support of the company's court case against the countervailing duty order on phosphate fertilizer from Morocco. The letter, sent through public relations firm Cogent Strategies, linked to a website also established by Cogent to serve as a platform for farmers to express their dissatisfaction with the order. The case the letter references is at the Court of International Trade and is challenging the International Trade Commission's injury determination that led to the imposition of the CVD order.
The 15% tariff on most solar panels and the 15% tariff on imported solar cells past a 2.5 gigawatt threshold are slated to expire Feb. 6, and, according to Reuters, the White House is considering accepting some of the International Trade Commission's recommendations on extending the solar panel and cell safeguard, and rejecting others. The ITC recommended reducing the current 15% rate by just .25% in 2022, and by another quarter point each year, until early 2026, when the safeguard would expire.
Judge Leonard Philip Stark, chief judge for the District of Delaware U.S. district court, was recommended Jan. 13 by the Senate Judiciary Committee for an opening on the Federal Circuit. Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Stark "has a special expertise in patent law, which commends him for this position with the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.”
CBP will suspend liquidation for entries of solar cells subject to Section 201 safeguard duties over the past 10-15 months, following to a Court of International Trade decision that invalidated a Trump-era increase in safeguard duty rates on solar cells and the withdrawal of an exemption for bifacial cells (see 2111170038), CBP said in a CSMS message Dec. 27.