The U.S. transferred nearly $500,000 in "forfeited Russian funds" to Estonia in an attempt to provide aid to Ukraine, DOJ announced on Feb. 17. The move, announced at the Munich Security Conference by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Estonian Secretary General Tonis Saar, is "the first of its kind from the United States to a foreign ally for the express purpose of assisting Ukraine," DOJ said.
A Chinese ball bearings exporter asked for another remand of an antidumping duty review on its products after the Commerce Department exchanged its adverse facts available AD rate for one based on neutral facts, saying the department double-counted when constructing its products’ values and wrongly capped its revenue related to Section 301 duties (Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00038).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 20 rejected a Commerce Department scope ruling finding R210-S engines made by Chonging Rato Technology Co. fall within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc and parts thereof from China.
Exporter Tau-Ken Temir (TKT) and Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration argued in a Feb. 12 reply brief that the Commerce Department doesn't have "essentially total discretion to decide deadlines and acceptance of filings." Responding to claims from the U.S. at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, TKT and the Kazakh ministry said the government didn't claim that any prejudice would have resulted from granting TKT's one-day extension request, which would have absolved the company from missing a filing deadline in a countervailing duty proceeding by 90 minutes (Tau-Ken Temir v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 15 said companies that submit requests for administrative review in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings can intervene as a matter of right at the Court of International Trade.
Tire exporter Pirelli Tyre told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the Commerce Department improperly applied its own legal framework for assessing whether the company rebutted the presumption of Chinese state control in the third review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. Filing a reply brief on Feb. 9, Pirelli said the agency ignored the policy's explicit directive to link all four of the factors concerning de facto foreign state control to a company's "export activities" (Pirelli Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2266).
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 8 opinion made public Feb. 13 remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on thermal paper from Germany. Judge Gary Katzmann sustained Commerce's inclusion of exporter Koehler Paper's "Blue4est" paper product within the scope of the investigation, its coding of the dynamic sensitivity product characteristic and its application of price adjustments for some home market rebates.
Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Kristina Puzyreva, a Russian and Canadian national, pleaded guilty on Feb. 12 to conspiracy to commit money laundering for her role in a scheme to export unnamed aerial vehicle parts, guided missile system components and other weapons to sanctioned Russian entities, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced. She faces up to 20 years in prison.
DOJ this week completed the forfeiture of a U.S.-origin Boeing 747 after a monthslong effort to seize the plane from Mahan Air, a sanctioned Iranian airline.