Australia extradited Chinese national Jin Guanghua to the U.S. last week to face charges that he, along with co-conspirators, took part in a scheme to sell tobacco in North Korea in violation of U.S. sanctions, DOJ announced. Jin made his initial appearance in a District of Columbia district court Sept. 30.
Covington announced last week that it opened a trade controls enforcement practice group to represent clients in sanctions and export controls investigations. The practice group combines the firm's trade controls regulatory practice and its white collar defense and investigations practice and will house teams in China, the EU, the U.K. and the U.S. Eric Sandberg-Zakian, a sanctions and export controls partner based in Washington, D.C., will head the practice group, Covington said.
Ljiljana Karadzic asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to set aside its order dismissing her suit challenging her designation on the Office of Foreign Assets Control's Specially Designated Nationals List (see 2408070040). Karadzic claimed the D.C. court failed to address her claim that OFAC made an "unreasonable" decision in "declining to remove her from the list" (Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic v. Lisa Palluconi, D.D.C. # 23-01226).
Petitioners pushed back Sept. 26 against a Court of International Trade remand order (see 2405310043) that resulted in the Commerce Department lowering a Brazilian honey exporter’s antidumping duty resulting from an investigation from 83.72% to 10.52% (see 2408270029) (Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora v. United States, CIT # 22-00185).
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Russian national Sergey Ivanov and virtual currency exchange Cryptex, which is operated by Ivanov. The move was announced concurrently with enforcement action from various U.S. and international enforcement agencies, including an indictment unsealed against Ivanov and fellow Russian national Timur Shakhmametov.
Plaintiffs in a case regarding the antidumping and countervailing duty reviews on wood mouldings and millwork from China filed two briefs Sept. 25 with the Court of International Trade, again arguing that, one, one respondent’s trading company should have been entitled to the same separate rate as the respondent itself, and, two, that the Commerce Department illegitimately chose to end its review of another respondent early and instead use adverse facts available (China Cornici Co. Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #s 23-000216, -00217).
The U.S. pushed back Sept. 20 against a Turkish steel exporter’s argument that the Commerce Department shouldn’t have determined during a review that its “sale dates” are the invoice dates, rather than dates of contract (see 2407250026) (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 24-00018).
Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi pleaded guilty last week to participating in a scheme to convince a U.S. person to move hundreds of thousands of dollars, in violations of U.S. sanctions, DOJ said. Bazzi, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for helping to finance the terror group Hezbollah, agreed to forfeit the nearly $830,000 involved in the transaction and to be removed from the U.S. after his sentence. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The U.S. on Sept. 20 defended its decision on remand to not apply partial adverse facts available against exporter Garg Tube, claiming that the exporter was "fully cooperative," having made multiple attempts to get cost information from an unaffiliated supplier. The government said Commerce couldn't find enough evidence to show that the potential leverage Garg Tube could exert over the supplier supports the use of AFA (Garg Tube Export v. U.S., CIT # 21-00169).
The EU General Court on Sept. 18 rejected a trio of cases challenging sanctions designations, brought by potassium fertilizer maker Belaruskali AAT, its director-general Ivan Golovaty and its exporting wing Belarusian Potash Company AAT.