The EU General Court on Feb. 26 rejected the sanctions delisting application of Aleksandra Melnichenko, wife of sanctioned Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko.
A North Carolina business owner pleaded guilty last week after trying to export accelerometer technology with military uses to China without a Bureau of Industry and Security license, DOJ said. David Bohmerwald, owner of the electronics resale business Components Cooper Inc., faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
Raj Parekh, a DOJ lawyer who was named the Bureau of Industry and Security’s first chief of corporate enforcement in September (see 2409120007), is leaving BIS next week to join the law firm Sparacino, he announced on LinkedIn. Parekh said his departure from government is “entirely unrelated to current events,” adding that his one-year detail as the BIS corporate enforcement chief “would have continued if it were not for this unique opportunity in the private sector.”
Three importers found to have evaded antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on Chinese glycine told the Court of International Trade that CBP has failed to offer any evidence of direct evasion of the orders. The importers, Newtrend USA, Starille and Nutrawave Co., said in a brief last week that all three categories of evidence relied on by CBP amount to "nothing more than speculation" (Newtrend USA Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00347).
The Commerce Department didn’t err in applying adverse facts available to exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret for a subsidy program that the agency only became aware of due to a letter from the exporter it rejected as untimely, the U.S. and petitioner Rebar Action Coalition said Feb. 21 in two briefs opposing the exporter's motion for judgment (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #24-00096).
John Eisenberg, former legal adviser to the National Security Council who served during the first Trump administration, is President Donald Trump's pick to lead DOJ’s National Security Division, DOJ announced last week. Eisenberg also previously held several roles within DOJ, including in the office of the deputy attorney general. If confirmed, Eisenberg will oversee the division that prosecutes various export control, sanctions, foreign investment and other national security-related violations.
Gal Haimovich, an Israeli national and owner of a freight forwarding company, was sentenced last week to two years in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in September as part of a scheme to illegally ship aircraft parts and avionics from U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to Russia (see 2409110018). DOJ said Haimovich -- who admitted to deceiving U.S. companies about the destination of the goods, some of which were sent to a sanctioned Russian airline Siberian Airlines (see 2412090012 -- also forfeited $2,024,435.44 to the U.S. government.
A federal court in Kentucky found that Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations licensing requirements for technical data don't violate the First Amendment as a restriction on free speech. Judge David Hale of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said the licensing requirements "advance important government interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech" and don't burden "substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests" (United States v. Pascoe, W.D. Ky. # 3:22-88).
In a reply brief Feb. 18, domestic petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition again argued that a review respondent’s conversion costs calculation should have been based only on its towers’ physical characteristics, not its monthly production quantity (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. United States, CIT # 24-00070).
After the Court of International Trade denied hoverboard importer 3BTect’s motion to strike three expert reports from the record of its classification dispute, the importer switched Feb. 14 to targeting the factual basis of the government’s cross-motion for judgment in a 72-page response brief (3BTech v. United States, CIT # 21-00026).