The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Turkish state-owned bank Halkbank is not shielded from "common-law foreign sovereign immunity" in the U.S. government's suit against the bank for sanctions evasion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said earlier this week, ruling that the U.S. may prosecute it on charges that it helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions (United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi, 2nd Cir. # 20-3499).
If a reelected President Donald Trump uses the existing Section 301 tariffs program to hike tariffs on all Chinese goods by at least 60%, that's likely to survive a court challenge, said two law professors who spoke during a Washington International Trade Association webinar on the executive branch's ability to make deals and impose trade restrictions without congressional say-so.
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Oct. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's rejection of eight Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests from importer Seneca Foods Corp. on its tin mill product entries. Judge Gary Katzmann said the rejections were backed by substantial evidence and in line with agency practice.
The Pentagon removed China-based Hesai Technology from its list of Chinese companies that it said have ties to that country’s military but immediately relisted the firm, according to a pair of Federal Register notices published this week.
An indictment was unsealed on Oct. 22 charging Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps brigadier general Ruhollah Bazghandi and members of his network with sanctions evasion, among other charges, in their efforts to murder a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin in New York City, DOJ announced.
In two complaints before the Court of International Trade, Chinese pea protein exporters argued that the Commerce Department had unlawfully refused to assign separate rates to either mandatory respondent in a 2023 review, resulting in a separate rate dumping margin of 122.19% and a countervailing duty rate of 15.78% (Zhaoyuan Junbang Trading Co. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00179, -00180).
Chinese national Lin Chen pleaded guilty last week for his role in a conspiracy to illegally export controlled U.S. technology to Chinese end users, including for a company on the Commerce Department’s Entity List (see 2404260019). As part of a plea agreement, Chen pleaded guilty to causing an unlawful export in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 28, when he faces a maximum statutory penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
The Commerce Department released its remand results Oct. 18 in a case regarding the antidumping duty review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, maintaining its earlier determinations but providing more detailed analyses for each (Catfish Farmers of America, et al. v. United States, CIT # 22-00125).
U.S. aerospace firm RTX tapped senior counsel Lara Covington to head the company’s compliance with the deferred prosecution agreements announced last week with DOJ and the SEC, Covington announced on LinkedIn. Covington’s official title will be the executive director of the RTX DPA Compliance Program Office, where she will help “ensure the company successfully meets its obligations” to both agencies, she wrote in her bio. RTX will pay close to $1 billion and agreed to a range of compliance commitments to resolve allegations that it committed violations of defense export control regulations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and more (see 2410160058).