Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi pleaded guilty last week to participating in a scheme to convince a U.S. person to move hundreds of thousands of dollars, in violations of U.S. sanctions, DOJ said. Bazzi, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for helping to finance the terror group Hezbollah, agreed to forfeit the nearly $830,000 involved in the transaction and to be removed from the U.S. after his sentence. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The U.S. on Sept. 20 defended its decision on remand to not apply partial adverse facts available against exporter Garg Tube, claiming that the exporter was "fully cooperative," having made multiple attempts to get cost information from an unaffiliated supplier. The government said Commerce couldn't find enough evidence to show that the potential leverage Garg Tube could exert over the supplier supports the use of AFA (Garg Tube Export v. U.S., CIT # 21-00169).
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.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
A Russian oligarch’s attempt to dispute EU sanctions freezing his funds failed in an EU appellate court last week.
Three grape grower trade groups filed a complaint on Sept. 13 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the Agriculture Department's notice allowing table grapes from Chile to be imported under a "systems approach" as opposed to using the standard fumigation requirements (California Table Grape Commission v. United States Department of Agriculture, D.D.C. # 24-02645).
The EU General Court last week upheld the sanctions listing of Marina Mordashova, who was sanctioned in 2022 for her association with her husband, Alexey Mordashov, chairman of investment firm Severgroup. The court rejected Mordashova's argument that she shouldn't be subject to sanctions because she was no longer married to Mordashov, according to an unofficial translation of the court's decision.
Business consulting firm FTI Consulting launched a national security practice that will offer advice on various national security issues, including export controls, reviews before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., sanctions, and "transshipment and diversion of critical technology." Michael Driscoll, former assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York office, will lead the practice.
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 Court of International Trade on Sept. 17 sent back the Commerce Department's use of a quarterly cost methodology to analyze exporter Officine Tecnosider's sales during the 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on steel plate from Italy to address "shortcomings" in its analysis.