Great Western Malting Co. of Vancouver, Wash., agreed to pay $1,347,750 to settle apparent violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, said the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The apparent violations occurred between August 2006 and March 2009, when Great Western performed back-office functions for the sales by a foreign affiliate of non-U.S. origin barley malt to Cuba. OFAC said the apparent violations constitute a non-egregious case. It did say that Great Western did not have an adequate OFAC compliance program in place at the time of the violations and some of the violations involved transactions with Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) in Cuba. But it said Great Western has no history of prior OFAC violations, substantially cooperated with OFAC, and, if the subject goods had been shipped from the U.S., they would have been eligible for an OFAC license.
ADC Telecommunications Inc. will pay the U.S. government $1 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims to federal agencies when it sold telecommunications goods manufactured in countries prohibited by the Trade Agreements Act, the Justice Department said. It said that from October 2005 to December 2008, ADC sold telecommunications hardware, such as communication modems, extender modules and shelf adapters to various federal agencies through its General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule contract that were knowingly manufactured in countries such as China that don't have reciprocal trade agreements with the U.S. and are not on the list of designated countries.
The Justice Department announced a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to the arrest of four fugitives allegedly involved in the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The announcement came July 9, as the indictment charging five individuals in the case was unsealed in Tucson.
Jovana Samaniego Deas, a former special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison following a multi-agency investigation that revealed she illegally accessed, stole and transferred sensitive U.S. government documents to unauthorized individuals and obstructed investigations, ICE said. In her plea hearing, Deas had admitted to abusing her position as a special agent to illegally obtain and disseminate government documents classified as "For Official Use Only." According to ICE, some of the sensitive information Deas accessed was later discovered by Brazilian law enforcement on the laptop computer of her former brother-in-law, who has ties to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico and Brazil.
The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s second remand redetermination of the final results of the 2005-06 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products (A-533-820). This second remand redetermination, which was ordered by CIT in April (i) for application of the ITA’s new policy on adjusting cost of production in accordance with the adjustment to Indian company Essar Steel Limited’s export price resulting from its duty-drawback claim, and (ii) to allow for the correction of a ministerial error discovered by Essar and agreed to by the ITA, sets the AD rate for Essar at 9.01%, up from 5.22% in the original final results. No parties contested the second remand redetermination, so CIT sustained it.
Pratt & Whitney Canada, a Canadian subsidiary of the Connecticut-based defense contractor United Technologies pleaded guilty June 28 to violating the Arms Export Control Act and making false statements in connection with its illegal export to China of U.S.-origin military software used in the development of China's first modern military attack helicopter, the Z-10, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement. United Technologies, its U.S.-based subsidiary Hamilton Sundstrand, and Pratt & Whitney Canada have all agreed to pay more than $75 million as part of a global settlement with the Justice Department and State Department in connection with the violations and for making false and belated disclosures to the U.S. government about these illegal exports, ICE said, of which up to $20 million can be suspended if applied by UTC to remedial compliance measures.
In a challenge of an International Trade Administration ruling that Chinese off-road tire manufacturer OTR Wheel Engineering, Inc.’s tires are within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain new pneumatic off-the-road tires from China (A-570-912 / C-570-913), the Court of International Trade remanded the issue to the ITA to complete a full scope inquiry.
The Court of International Trade ruled that a challenge to the International Trade Administration’s exclusion (because of a zero rate) of a Chinese company from the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China (A-570-970) was untimely filed, but said it would not dismiss the case because of questions, in light of recent Supreme Court and appellate court rulings, regarding (i) whether the relevant time requirements preclude jurisdiction and (ii) the possibility of equitable tolling. CIT ordered further briefing to address these issues.
Richard Phillips, 54, of the Bronx, NY, was sentenced to 92 months in prison for attempting to export high-technology commodities to Iran in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement reported. According to court documents, in October 2011, Phillips offered his services and expertise in exporting a spool of carbon fiber to Tehran, Iran, via the Philippines, in violation of the U.S. trade embargo against Iran. The two main applications of carbon fiber are in specialized technology, including aerospace and nuclear engineering, and in general engineering and transportation. In a recorded telephone conversation with an undercover special agent, Phillips was warned that the export of the carbon fiber to Iran was illegal under the trade embargo, ICE said.
In a challenge of CBP’s customs classification of “gold leaf vials” with a gold plated cap imported from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in favor of plaintiff Salem Minerals Inc. CBP had originally classified plaintiff’s “small glass vial filled with clear liquid and a small quantity of gold leaf fragments, topped with a ‘theme’ cap featuring a small figurine, and affixed with a label” under Harmonized Tariff Schedule 2005 subheading 7114.90.00 (“Articles of goldsmiths’…wares...': Of other precious metal whether or not plated or clad with precious metal”), dutiable at 7.9%. CIT ruled that the product was instead properly classified under 7115.90.30 (“Other articles of precious metal…: Other…Other: Of gold, including metal clad with gold”), dutiable at 3.9%.