The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a decision by the Court of International Trade that had ruled an importer's antidumping duty entries were improperly “deemed liquidated’ by U.S. Customs and Border Protection while liquidation was suspended. According to the CAFC, all liquidations, whether legal or not, must be timely protested before litigation can occur.
The Supreme Court has asked the Solicitor General for an opinion in order to decide whether to hear a case in which the American Trucking Associations (ATA) seeks reversal of a Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruling on the Port of Los Angeles' Clean Trucks Program concession requirements. The Appeals Court had upheld four of the Port's concession requirements based on the "market participant" exception to federal preemption. ATA expects the Solicitor General to respond by fall 2012.
An executive of Japan's DENSO Corp. agreed to plead guilty and go to prison for fixing prices and rigging bids for heater control panels installed in U.S. cars, the Justice Department said March 26. The one-count felony charge filed in U.S. District Court, Detroit, the executive and others conspired to fix and stabilize the prices of the panels, at least from August 2006 to June 2009. The executive, Norihiro Imai, agreed to a year in prison and a $20,000 fine. A total of eight individuals and three companies have been charged in the government's ongoing investigation of price fixing in the auto parts industry, the Justice Department said.
Indiana-based Biomet faces separate Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department charges of violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with allegedly bribing doctors in Argentina, Brazil and China for more than a decade in order to get more business.
On March 13, 2012, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and import specialists in Seattle, Washington seized a shipment of 25,822 purses arriving in an ocean container from China. More than 8,500 of the purses were seized in violation of various counterfeit trademarks including: Louis Vuitton, North Face, Gucci, Fendi, Burberry and Coach. The combined manufacturer’s suggested retail price of the handbags, had the trademarks been genuine, is more than $8.4 million. According to CBP, China continues to be the number one source country for counterfeit and pirated goods seized, accounting for 62 percent or $124.7 million of the total domestic value of seizures in 2011.
On March 15, 2012, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) filed a Statement of Issues with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In its filing, ATA identifies four areas where the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's December 2011 hours-of-service (HOS) final rule falls short of legal standards for regulatory changes. ATA contends these aspects of the rule are "arbitrary and capricious" and should be overturned.
The Justice Department has announced that AU Optronics Corporation, the largest Taiwanese thin-film transistor-liquid crystal display panels (TFT-LCD) producer and seller, its U.S.-based subsidiary, and certain executives have been found guilty for participating in a LCD price-fixing conspiracy. The jury found that the ill-gotten gain to the conspirators as a result of the fixed sales in the U.S. was at least $500 million. The maximum fine for the corporations is $1 billion.
On February 28, 2012, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum on whether corporations can be sued in U.S. courts for violations of human rights committed abroad under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) (passed in 1789). The Justices were expected to issue their ruling before the conclusion of the Supreme Court's current session in June 2012. However, on March 5, 2012, the Supreme Court ordered the case for reargument in its next term.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on March 13, 2012 that Charles Wright, former president of ESM Group Inc., a specialty metal powder supplier, has pleaded guilty to smuggling magnesium powder into the U.S. and avoiding a 305.56% antidumping duty for such merchandise from China.
The Court of International Trade dismissed a claim by NSK Corporation, the U.S. affiliate of a global ball bearings manufacturer based in Japan, challenged the constitutionality of the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA or Byrd Amendment). NSK Corp. claimed that it was unlawfully denied affected domestic producer (ADP) status, which would have qualified it to receive distributions for fiscal years 2005-2007. .