Jacob Kopnick

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed a suit against the State Department concerning the regulation of 3D gun file exports, saying the claims are moot because the State Department shifted export control responsibility to the Commerce Department. Judge Robert Pitman dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, saying plaintiffs Defense Distributed and Second Amendment Foundation failed to show the State Department still regulated the exports. Pitman also ruled that Defense Distributed's claim for monetary damages against the State Department belongs "to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims."

Roger Ng, former managing director of The Goldman Sachs Group, was sentenced on March 9 to 10 years in prison for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as part of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said. Federal prosecutors sought 15 years for the investment banker.

Australian mining giant Rio Tinto will pay a $15 million civil penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle claims the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing a Guinean government official to retain mining rights in the country.

World Trade Organization Deputy Director-General Angela Ellard spoke about a range of trade issues this week, including the fisheries deal struck at the 12th Ministerial Conference and ongoing reform efforts surrounding the dispute settlement panel.

The U.S. filed appeals against four World Trade Organization dispute panel rulings that found the U.S. Section 232 national security tariffs on steel and aluminum violated global trade rules. The U.S. said during the Jan. 27 meeting of the dispute settlement body it will take the case to the Appellate Body -- the next tier of the WTO's dispute settlement system that stands defunct due to U.S. refusal to seat members on the body over reform concerns.

The Supreme Court of the U.S. held oral arguments on Jan. 17 over Turkish state-owned Halkbank's claims that the U.S. judicial system does not have the jurisdiction to hear criminal cases against foreign governments and their state-owned entities. Halkbank is attempting to shirk prosecution over its efforts to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The bank's arguments received a mixed reaction from the Supreme Court, with numerous justices expressing doubt over the plaintiff's claims that it is immune from criminal prosecution under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. U.S., #21-1450).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in a Jan. 9 opinion upheld a district court ruling sentencing Chinese national Shuren Qin to two years in prison for violating federal export controls. Qin was found guilty of shipping hydrophones with anti-submarine applications to a Chinese military university on the Commerce Department's Entity List (see 2109090033). Judges David Barron, Jeffrey Howard and William Kayatta ruled the search of Qin's laptop and cellphone "constituted a border search that was supported by reasonable suspicion that Qin was engaged in the ongoing violation of export laws," and the defendant was properly convicted (United States v. Shuren Qin, 1st Cir. # 21-1832).

The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in a Dec. 22 opinion denied three Maryland men's post-trial motions seeking dismissal of their convictions, among other things, pertaining to their efforts to illegally export arms and ammunition to Nigeria. The court said Wilson Tita of Owings Mills, Eric Nji of Fort Washington and Wilson Fonguh of Bowie failed to prove that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen rendered unconstitutional the defendants' conviction on a charge of transporting a firearm with an obliterated serial number (U.S. v. Wilson Nuyila Tita).

The EU levied its ninth package of economic and individual sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. The new restrictions, announced by the European Council Dec. 16, impose export controls on dual-use goods, expand sanctions on banking and broadcasting firms in Russia, set a new ban on investment in the Russian mining sector and add a "significant number" of new financial designations.

The World Trade Organization issued a series of four rulings Dec. 9 finding that the U.S. Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs set by President Donald Trump violated global trade rules. In the landmark rulings, a three-person panel found that the duties violated Articles I, II, XI and XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The dispute panel said the tariffs, which the Trump administration said were needed to maintain U.S. national security, were not "taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations," as mandated by Article XXI(b)(iii) of national security protections, so the duties violate the GATT.