Jalal Hajavi of Virginia was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of supervised release after he illegally exported heavy equipment from the U.S. to Iran, DOJ announced this week. Hajavi also misled a U.S. freight forwarder about the “ultimate destination” of the shipment, DOJ said, which caused the forwarder to file false export information to the Commerce Department.
Ilya Kahn, a citizen of the U.S., Russia and Israel, was arrested on Jan. 17 for allegedly aiding a scheme to illicitly ship sensitive technology from the U.S. to a sanctioned Russian business, DOJ announced. Kahn was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California with conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Commerce Department’s use of Turkish lira, not U.S. dollars, to calculate home market sales was contrary to record evidence that a Turkish exporter used the latter currency in its price negotiations, invoices and records, the exporter said on appeal (Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi A.S. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1158).
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Jan. 17 in a pair of cases contesting the Chevron doctrine, under which deference is afforded to executive agencies in interpreting federal laws where there is ambiguity. Many of the justices appeared primed to strike down the doctrine, including Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who either criticized its use or questioned its current relevancy and impact (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Sup. Ct. # 22-451) (Relentless v. Dept. of Commerce, Sup. Ct. # 22-1219).
NEW YORK -- The Court of International Trade held oral argument on Jan. 18 in Chinese exporter Ninestar's case challenging its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, addressing the company's motion for a preliminary injunction against its listing and its bid to unseal and unredact the record in the case (Ninestar Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).
The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's decision to accept antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners' supplemental questionnaire response after initially rejecting it for being submitted 16 minutes late. Judge M. Miller Baker, in a Jan. 5 opinion made public Jan. 16, nodded to his prior opinion in the case, in which he held that the rejection of the submission was "the very definition of abuse of discretion" (see 2307170036). The result was a zero percent dumping margin for the exporter.
An Italian tire company had not adequately proven it wasn't controlled by the Chinese government, especially as substantial evidence existed to the contrary, the U.S. said Jan. 5 in response to the exporter’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Pirelli Tyre v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2266).
The Commerce Department swapped its use of partial adverse facts available for partial neutral facts available for antidumping duty respondent Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. after admitting that it isn't able to determine whether Tainai has "sufficient control over its suppliers to induce their cooperation" (Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00038).
Businesses and industry lawyers should expect to see an increase in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement this year, especially as DOJ more frequently uses data analytics to find possible violations, said Dan Kahn, the former chief of DOJ’s FCPA unit.