A Hallandale, Florida, resident was charged on July 2 with smuggling controlled goods into Russia from the U.S. Kirill Gordei, president of Florida-based freight forwarding company Apelsin Logistics, faces three counts -- conspiracy to commit offenses against the U.S., smuggling goods from the U.S. and exporting a spectrometer, a controlled item, unlawfully -- DOJ announced. A Belarus citizen and U.S. permanent resident, Gordei faces maximums of five, 10 and 20 years in prison for the charges, respectively.
Antidumping duty petitioner Ventura Coastal invoked the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo -- which overturned the principle of Chevron deference -- to claim that the Court of International Trade doesn't need to adhere to the Commerce Department's interpretation of the statute "defining affiliation between parties" (Ventura Coastal v. U.S., CIT # 23-00009).
Neil MacBride, general counsel for the Treasury Department since February 2022, left the agency last week, he announced on LinkedIn. MacBride helped advise Treasury on issues relating to sanctions and terrorism finance, financial crimes enforcement and more, according to the department.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 17-27 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):
Refraining from joining exporters’ June 13 submission to the Court of International Trade (see 2406140059), a plaintiff-intervenor importer filed its own motion for judgment making similar arguments against Commerce’s finding that Thai solar panel exporters had circumvented an antidumping duty order on solar panels from China (Canadian Solar International Limited v. U.S., CIT # 23-00222).
The EU General Court in a pair of decisions on June 26 annulled the sanctions listings of Russian businessman Dmitry Alexandrovich Pumpyanskiy and his wife, Galina Evgenyevna Pumpyanskaya. Pumpyanskiy was listed for supporting the Russian government and acting as a "leading businessperson operating in Russia" providing a "substantial source of revenue to the Government of Russia." He formerly served as chairman of Pipe Metalurgic Company (TMK) and president of investment firm Group Sinara, while his wife was listed solely for her link to the businessman. The court said the European Council can't rely on those listing criteria to maintain Pumpyanskiy's sanctions designation given that he no longer holds those positions at TMK or Group Sinara. Pumpyanskaya was removed because the sole basis of her designation was severed following her husband's successful appeal.
The U.S. in a June 25 brief defended the Commerce Department's finding that 16 of exporter Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co.'s input suppliers are government authorities based on adverse facts available, which was used due to the Chinese government's failure to provide adequate information (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00136).
Joly Germine of Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in a scheme to illegally export firearms to Haiti and for laundering money paid for U.S. hostages held by the Haitian gang 400 Mawozo, DOJ announced.
The Commerce Department reduced the antidumping duty rate for a collapsed entity, made up of exporter Siemens Gamesa, affiliated supplier Windar Renovables and five of Windar's subsidiaries, from 73% to 28.55% after reverting to the use of partial adverse facts available for the entity (Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy v. U.S., CIT # 21-00449).
Exporters Guizhou Tyre Co. and Aeolus Tyre Co. said in a June 20 reply brief that the U.S. ignored the manner in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said presumptions operate under the Federal Rules of Evidence (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2163).