Information collected under the Export Control Reform Act is “presumptively withheld” from Freedom of Information Act requests, the U.S. said July 14 in a case involving the disclosure of documents related to an addition to the Entity List (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).
The U.S. and law firm Husch Blackwell again swapped briefs June 13 in the firm’s Freedom of Information Act dispute. Husch Blackwell said the government, which provided a list of more than 100 disclosed and undisclosed documents related to the firm’s FOIA request regarding an Entity List listing when it filed for summary judgment (see 2505300055), still wasn’t making clear which documents were actually responsive to the request (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).
A Texas-based industrial equipment supplier and its former CEO were fined millions of dollars for intentionally violating sanctions and export control laws, but the U.S. declined to prosecute its parent company after the firm voluntarily disclosed the violations and cooperated closely with DOJ’s investigation.
Importer Prysmian Cables and Systems, USA filed a motion for judgment June 5 after a host of its other claims against the U.S. were dismissed in January (see 2501220064). It said that the Commerce Department wrongly rejected two of its Section 232 exclusion requests by claiming an authority based on national security that it didn’t actually have and two more by treating prospective presidential proclamations as retrospective (Prysmian Cables and Systems v. U.S., CIT # 24-00101).
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Liz Abraham, former director of the Bureau of Industry and Security's International Policy Office, has joined White & Case as a trade lawyer in its international trade practice, a spokesperson for the firm said. Abraham had been with BIS since May 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile. She officially joined White & Case on June 2.
A law firm said May 23 that the U.S. was failing to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act partly because it was relying on a “novelly broad” interpretation of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).
Food storage importer Huhtamaki brought a May 8 complaint to the Court of International Trade saying CBP wrongly applied Section 301 duties to its clamshell container imports. Prior to entry, the importer said, it had undertaken “a months-long wild-goose chase” with CBP that ended with verbal confirmation the imports were excluded (Huhtamaki, Inc. v. United States, CIT # 24-00050).
The Court of International Trade on May 6 denied a motion to compel discovery of unredacted versions of CBP officials' internal emails from importer Quantified Operations and manufacturer WobbleWorks (HK) in a customs case on the classification of the companies' 3D pens. Judge Richard Eaton said the redacted information isn't relevant to the classification claims and is "protected by the deliberative process privilege" (Quantified Operations v. United States, CIT # 22-00178).
Former senior Bureau of Industry and Security officials Matt Borman and Eileen Albanese have joined Akin, the firm announced this week. Borman -- who served more than two decades with BIS, including most recently as the principal deputy assistant secretary for export administration -- joins as a trade lawyer. Albanese, most recently the director of the BIS Office of National Security Controls, joins Akin as a regulatory adviser. Both Borman and Albanese left BIS earlier this year (see 2502240003).