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).
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Thea Kendler, former assistant secretary for export administration at the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, and Aiysha Hussain, Kendler's senior policy adviser, have joined Mayer Brown as partners in the international trade, national security and white-collar defense practices, the firm announced. Kendler served at BIS for three years, joining the agency from DOJ, where she worked as a trial attorney in the national security division. Hussain worked at Commerce since 2020, serving as senior counsel then senior policy adviser for export administration.
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A North Carolina business owner pleaded guilty last week after trying to export accelerometer technology with military uses to China without a Bureau of Industry and Security license, DOJ said. David Bohmerwald, owner of the electronics resale business Components Cooper Inc., faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
Raj Parekh, a DOJ lawyer who was named the Bureau of Industry and Security’s first chief of corporate enforcement in September (see 2409120007), is leaving BIS next week to join the law firm Sparacino, he announced on LinkedIn. Parekh said his departure from government is “entirely unrelated to current events,” adding that his one-year detail as the BIS corporate enforcement chief “would have continued if it were not for this unique opportunity in the private sector.”
President Donald Trump's recent expansion of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs likely would survive a judicial challenge, particularly in light of the string of cases challenging the Section 232 duties imposed during his first term, trade lawyers told us. Thomas Beline, partner at Cassidy Levy, said Trump's move to eliminate the country-specific arrangements and product exclusions is "likely defensible," since the statute lets the president take any action he deems necessary where an agreement is "not being carried out or is ineffective."
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