Jacob Kopnick

Shipping companies Prive Overseas Marine and Prive Shipping Denizcilik Ticaret were sentenced last week to pay a $2 million criminal penalty after pleading guilty to dumping oil-contaminated waste into the ocean, DOJ announced. The companies operated the P/S Dream, the vessel from which the waste was released, and will both also undergo a four-year probationary period.

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.

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 26 ordered the Commerce Department to add exporter The Ancientree Cabinet Co.'s ministerial error allegation to the record of a suit on the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on wooden cabinets and vanities from China. Judge Mark Barnett gave Commerce until Oct. 7 to add the allegation to the record (The Ancientree Cabinet Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00262).

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).

Exporter Nagase & Co. will appeal its case on the first review of the antidumping duty order on glycine from Japan, according to its Sept. 27 notice of appeal at the Court of International Trade. In July, the court sustained the Commerce Department's decision to remove Nagase's compensation for payment expense from its general and administrative expense ratio and said that Nagase failed to exhaust its administrative remedies pertaining to its challenge to Commerce's assessment rate (see 2407300052). The exporter challenged the assessment rate at CIT, despite not raising the issue during the review, claiming that the remand proceeding at the trade court created a new decision for judicial review. The court rejected that claim (Nagase & Co. v. U.S., CiT # 21-00574).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 27 granted the government's motion for a voluntary remand in a case on the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on mechanical tubing of carbon and alloy steel from Italy. The U.S. asked for the remand to reconsider the "single-entity treatment" of exporters Dalmine and Silcotub (see 2409260027). During the review, Commerce rejected submissions from the petitioners, led by ArcelorMittal Tubular Products, which contained five memos from the Commerce Department from recent cases in which the agency collapsed entities "under analogous facts." The U.S. asked for a remand to reconsider its rejections of these submissions and, by extension, the collapsing analysis (ArcelorMittal Tubular Products v. U.S., CIT # 24-00039).

Texas-based syringe importer Retractable Technologies took to the Court of International Trade to contest the 100% increase of Section 301 tariffs recently imposed on needles and syringes from China. The complaint is seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against the duties, claiming that the tariffs could send the company out of business (Retractable Technologies v. United States, CIT # 24-00185).

Meghan Pearce, former federal policy director at tech advocacy group TechNet, has joined Steptoe as a senior international trade legislative assistant in the government affairs and public policy practice, Pearce announced on LinkedIn. Pearce started at TechNet in 2020, working up to policy director. Earlier, she worked as a legislative correspondent for Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.

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.