Court of International Trade Senior Judge Donald Pogue died on Oct. 26, the CIT confirmed. Pogue, chief judge from 2010 to 2014, was 69. He was appointed to the court in 1995 by President Bill Clinton and served on Connecticut's Superior Court before then, according to his CIT bio (here). "On behalf of [the Customs and International Trade Bar Association], I express our condolences to Judge Pogue’s family and colleagues," said Lawrence Friedman, president of CITBA. "He was an asset to the Court of International Trade and to the customs and trade bar. He was uniformly respected by all practitioners who appeared before him," Friedman said. "Personally, I always enjoyed my interactions with Judge Pogue both in the courtroom and at events outside the court. He always struck me as genuinely concerned about the parties and the lawyers that appeared before him and worked with him." CIT had no immediate comment.
Already-liquidated entries aren’t eligible for refunds after an antidumping or countervailing duty order is revoked, even if the entries came after the effective date of revocation, the Court of International Trade said in a decision issued Oct. 25 (here). The court denied Thyssenkrupp’s attempts to reclaim antidumping duties it paid on corrosion resistant steel products it imported from Germany, finding CBP’s liquidation of the entries was not protestable, and that Commerce’s liquidation instructions complied with AD/CV duty laws that mandate sunset review revocations apply only to future entries, not retroactively.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is denying the export privileges of a Florida man who in 2013 was convicted for exporting two LTN-72 inertial navigation units to Turkey without obtaining necessary Commerce Department authorization, BIS announced (here). Junaid Peerani’s export privileges are denied until five years after his Aug. 14, 2013, conviction by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. BIS also ordered a revocation of all licenses in which Peerani had an interest at the time of his conviction.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 17-23:
A Florida tobacco importer faces criminal charges and possible prison time for allegedly evading $13 million in excise taxes, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida on Oct. 21 (here). Gitano Pierre Bryant Jr. miscalculated the amount of excise taxes he owed on large cigars he imported, despite repeated warnings from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) and a previous conviction, and falsified invoices to further lower his tax payments, the attorney’s office said.
Cargo vans exported to Canada and retrofitted as motorhomes before being imported into the U.S. do not qualify for duty-free treatment as goods returned after alteration or repair, the Court of International Trade said in a decision issued Oct. 18 (here). The transformation from a cargo van into a motorhome changed the character of the finished product so much that the importer, Pleasure-Way Industries, can no longer claim that it is the same article that it exported for tariff classification purposes, CIT said.
The Department of Justice recently outlined its policies on remediation of penalties for willful export controls and sanctions violations when a company submits a voluntary self-disclosure (VSD). A guidance document (here) issued in early October sets forth the criteria DOJ’s National Security Division “uses in exercising its prosecutorial discretion in this area,” as well as “the possible benefits that could be afforded to an organization that makes a voluntary self-disclosure.” The guidance document directs companies to continue to submit VSDs to the relevant agency -- the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls or the Office of Foreign Assets Control, depending on the violation -- and if the violation was willful, to also submit the VSD to the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) of the National Security Division.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 10-16:
The Court of International Trade recently blocked the Commerce Department and CBP from collecting antidumping and countervailing duty cash deposits on entries suspended by CBP before Commerce began a scope ruling on the merchandise. After it found Sunpreme’s hybrid solar cells were subject to AD/CV duties in August (see 1608030041), Commerce directed CBP to collect cash deposits on all unliquidated entries, even those that CIT had previously decided CBP had improperly suspended before the scope proceeding (see 1601190080). In a decision publicly released on Oct. 12 (here), the court found Commerce likely had no authority to do so, issuing an injunction stopping collection of cash deposits until it reaches a final decision in the case.
Federal agents arrested a U.S. citizen and two Russian nationals for charges of exporting controlled microelectronics from the U.S. to end users in Russia, without a license, the Department of Justice said in an Oct. 6 press release (here). Alexey Barysheff of Brooklyn, New York, and Dmitrii Karpenko and Alexey Krutilin of Russia, were arrested, and federal agents executed search warrants at two Brooklyn locations alleged to be the “front” companies of “BKLN Spectra” and “UIP Techno” used for illicit shipments. Microelectronics shipped to Russia included digital-to-analog converters and integrated circuits, often used in radar and surveillance systems, missile guidance systems and satellites, DOJ said. The defendants and their co-conspirators provided the U.S. government with false end user information in connection with the purchase of the items, hid that they were exporters, and falsely classified the exported goods on records submitted to the Commerce Department, DOJ said.