A Chilean shipping company has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $8.9 million in fines for its role in an international scheme to fix the prices of ocean shipping services for roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) cargo, said the Justice Department. According to charges filed Feb. 27 in the Maryland U.S. District Court, Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV) engaged in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition by allocating customers and routes, rigging bids and fixing prices for the sale of international ocean shipping services of inbound and outbound ro-ro cargo, such as cars and trucks, including at the Port of Baltimore. DOJ says CSAV participated in the conspiracy from at least January 2000 to September 2012. DOJ says the plea deal is the first in a wide-ranging investigation on price fixing of ocean shipping services.
A federal judge sentenced two New York residents to 12 months in prison for their roles in a conspiracy to import falsely classified and counterfeit Nike shoes, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York. Huang Yue Feng and He Bin “Julie” Wang, formerly husband and wife, had pleaded guilty to the charges in 2009. The defendants also forfeited over $400,000 in cash and property.
Antidumping duties on drill pipe from China may soon be no more, according to a Feb. 25 Court of International Trade decision and associated court documents. The duties had originally been imposed in 2011 after the ITC found a threat of injury to U.S. industry from dumped imports. But a CIT decision from August 2013 that was only made public in January took issue with the ITC’s findings, and sent them back down for reconsideration. The ITC on Dec. 11 filed its remand redetermination with the court, and in a reversal of its earlier position found no injury to U.S. industry. If the court affirms that redetermination, it will result in the lifting of AD duties on drill pipe form China.
The government on Feb. 24 filed suit against four importers of children’s products, alleging numerous violations of product safety standards. The Justice Department is seeking an order from the Central California U.S. District Court that prohibits the companies from importing any more violative product into the United States. According to the complaint, sampling by the Consumer Product Safety Commission has turned up violations of federal safety standards for lead, phthalates, and small parts in toys, as well as other CPSC product safety requirements.
The countervailing duty rate for aluminum extrusions from China (C-570-968) exported by Zhaoqing New Zhongya Aluminum is set to fall to 4.89%, after the Court of International Trade on Feb. 19 affirmed the Commerce Department’s recalculation of the company’s original investigation rate. Zhongya had been assigned a CV duty rate of 8.02% in 2011 (see 11052633), but CIT later took issue with the way Commerce valued land subsidies and remanded for Commerce to revisit the issue (see 13071901. Commerce didn’t set a new rate for Zhongya in the only CV duty administrative review completed since the original investigation (see 13123123), so the new 4.89% CV duty rate appears to apply to CV duty cash deposits on future entries as well.
Antidumping duty rates assigned to 29 exporters of frozen warmwater shrimp from China (A-570-893) in the 2004 original investigation will fall to 6.7%, after the Court of International Trade on Feb. 18 affirmed a remand redetermination from the Commerce Department. Although nearly a decade has passed since the rates were set, the change may apply in a few cases to current AD cash deposit requirements if no rates have been set in recent years.
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 18 sustained the 2.78% antidumping duty rate assigned to Xinjiamei Furniture (Zhangzhou) in a new shipper review on folding metal tables and chairs from China (A-570-868). After having remanded Xinjiamei’s AD rate in March 2013 (see 13031204), the court found that the Commerce Department complied with its instruction to justify its use of some data on the second go round. CIT refused to hear Xinjiamei’s arguments to the contrary because the company didn’t first address its concerns to Commerce after the agency issued a draft version of its remand redetermination.
The owner of a Chicago-area auto shop was charged with felony counterfeit trademarks after counterfeit airbags were found at the business, said ICE in a press release. The charges were a result of investigation by Cook County Sheriff’s Police, with assistance from ICE's Homeland Security Investigations and CBP, it said. Law enforcement first went to the shipping address for a shipment of counterfeit airbags from China, the release said. "CBP officers had seized the airbag shipment earlier that week. Investigators learned that Grzegorz Lepkowski, who lived at the location, had ordered the airbags for his friend Stanislaw Gondek. CBP had previously notified Gondek on three separate occasions that the agency had seized counterfeit airbags that were originally to be shipped to his business." A search of Gondek's business turned up 24 counterfeit airbags, said ICE.
A New Jersey man was found guilty Jan. 14 by a federal jury in Bangor, Maine of illegally trafficking and smuggling narwhal tusks, as well as associated money laundering charges, said the Justice Department. Andrew Zarauskas was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, smuggling, and money laundering violations for buying narwhal tusks despite knowing the tusks had been illegally imported into the U.S. from Canada, and selling the tusks after their illegal import, said DOJ.
Bridgestone Corp. has pleaded guilty and will pay a $425 million fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix the price of auto parts. The penalty for Bridgestone brings the total fines collected to over $2 billion in the Justice Department’s wide-ranging investigation on auto parts price fixing. According to DOJ, Bridgestone was part of a conspiracy to fix the prices of automotive anti-vibration rubber parts it sold to Toyota, Nissan, Fuji Heavy Industries, Suzuki, and Isuzu, as well as their subsidiaries, affiliates and suppliers, in the U.S. and abroad.