Importers led by Tenaris Bay City sent comments to the Court of International Trade last week opposing the International Trade Commission's separate decisions to cumulate both Russian and South Korean oil country tubular goods with goods from Argentina and Mexico. Tenaris Bay argued that the ITC improperly interpreted the statute in defining the phrase "compete with," which "uses the present tense and thus denotes" that the goods in question must compete with the like product during the "months leading up to and including vote day" (Tenaris Bay City v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00344).
The EU General Court on Oct. 2 upheld the validity of the EU prohibition on the provision of legal advisory services to the Russian government and to entities established in Russia. The court said the sanction doesn't undermine the right of all persons to be advised by a lawyer for "conducting, pre-empting or anticipating judicial proceedings."
The District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Oct. 1 unsealed an indictment against Russian citizen Aleksandr Ryzhenkov, the "second-in-command" of the Russian cybercriminal group Evil Corp., for using the BitPaymer ransomware variant against various U.S. individuals to "hold their sensitive data for ransom," DOJ announced.
A Russian citizen living in North Georgia, Feliks Medvedev, was sentenced on Oct. 2 to three years and 10 months in prison for conducting an "unlicensed money transmitting business," which saw the transfer of over $150 million in Russian money. Medvedev was also sentenced to three years of supervised release following his prison sentence and told to pay a $10,000 fine, DOJ said.
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.
The EU General Court on Sept. 18 rejected a trio of cases challenging sanctions designations, brought by potassium fertilizer maker Belaruskali AAT, its director-general Ivan Golovaty and its exporting wing Belarusian Potash Company AAT.
A Russian oligarch’s attempt to dispute EU sanctions freezing his funds failed in an EU appellate court last week.
The U.S. recently unsealed a pair of indictments, one against Russian national Denis Postovoy and the other against Chinese national Song Wu, for national security-related offenses. Postovoy is accused of conspiring to commit export control violations by shipping microelectronic components with military applications from the U.S. to Russia, while Song is charged with fraud and identity theft related to efforts to obtain confidential or proprietary software from government agencies, research universities and private companies.
The EU General Court on Sept. 11 rejected the Russian National Settlement Depository's challenge to its listing on the Russian sanctions list. The court said that the European Council didn't fail to show that the depository, which provides financial services and securities record-keeping and custody services, plays an "essential role in the functioning of Russia's financial system."
The EU General Court earlier this month dismissed the delisting applications of Igor Kesaev, largest shareholder of Russian weapons maker Degtyarev Factory, and Kirill Shamalov, deputy chairman of the management board of petrochemical company Sibur Holding, in a pair of decisions, according to an unofficial translation.