Ray Hunt, an Alabama resident and business owner, was sentenced this week to five years in prison after pleading guilty in July to conspiring to illegally export U.S.-origin goods to Iran, DOJ announced. The agency said Hunt conspired to ship parts used in the oil and gas industry to Iran and submitted false export information to the U.S. government (see 2211300011). He worked around U.S. restrictions by using third-party transshipment companies in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, routing payments through UAE banks, and lying to shipping companies about how much the exports were worth to stop them from filing export information in the Automated Export System.
Importer Outokumpu Stainless Steel brought a Feb. 20 complaint to the Court of International Trade alleging CBP had wrongly failed to correct the country of origin designated on 173 of its entries, resulting in the importer being assessed Section 232 tariffs (Outokumpu Stainless USA v. United States, CIT # 25-00047).
Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on Feb. 21 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
Responding to a petitioner (see 2412300009), the U.S. said Feb. 21 that two mandatory respondents in a countervailing duty review of chlorinated isoscyanurates from China hadn’t earned an adverse inference for failing to provide the Commerce Department land-use contracts that would show they hadn’t been granted land for less-than-adequate remuneration (Bio-Lab v. U.S., CIT # 24-00118).
The Commerce Department properly included Asia Wheel Co.'s trailer wheels made of Chinese rims and Thai discs in the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on steel trailer wheels from China, the Court of International Trade held in a pair of nearly identical decisions. Judge Gary Katzmann said that Commerce didn't illegally expand the scope of the orders since the agency left open the possibility in the original AD/CVD investigations to discuss mixed-origin wheels in a later scope ruling.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on Feb. 19 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a pair of nearly-identical decisions sustained the Commerce Department's scope ruling that certain trailer wheels made by Asia Wheel Co. fall within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel trailer wheels from China. The wheels are made in Thailand using discs from China and rims made in Thailand. Judge Gary Katzmann held that Commerce didn't unlawfully expand the scope of the orders, since the agency said when it imposed the orders that wheels made of mixed-origin rims and discs could be subject to a scope ruling in the future. The judge also held that Commerce's finding that Asia Wheel's products weren't "substantially transformed" in Thailand was properly supported.
The Commerce Department properly excluded in-transit mattresses from the calculation of constructed export price (CEP) for respondent PT. Zinus Global Indonesia in the antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Indonesia, the Court of International Trade held on Feb. 18. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves also sustained Commerce's exclusion of the selling expenses of Zinus Indonesia's parent company Zinus Korea from the normal value calculation.