Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite last week touted DOJ's action under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, championing DOJ's $315 million FCPA resolution with ABB over the company's bribery of an official in South Africa's state-owned energy company (see 2212050021). The case was the department's "first coordinated resolution with authorities in South Africa," and has resulted in South African authorities bringing corruption charges of their own against the official, Polite said in closing remarks, as prepared for delivery, Dec. 9 at an anti-corruption conference.
If and when cannabis becomes legal to import into the U.S., there is a "high level of certainty" that a U.S. producer will complain about the fairness of the imports to the domestic industry, leading to antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings, said Adams Lee, international trade attorney at Harris Bricken, during a Dec. 1 webinar hosted by the law firm. Speaking about cannabis and international trade, Lee predicted that if imports of cannabis become legal, they will likely come from Canada -- a nation that has legalized recreational marijuana -- and diminish the market share of U.S.-made product.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation says the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports have been fruitless, and antidumping and countervailing duty laws also are inadequate to counter the wide variety of abuses from China -- industrial espionage, forced technology transfer, discrimination against foreign sales in China, as well as enormous subsidies. "It is time for the U.S. government, ideally working with allies, to craft and implement a new set of trade defense instruments," ITIF Founder Robert Atkinson wrote in a white paper released Nov. 21.
The Federal Maritime Commission hired Phillip "Chris" Hughey as general counsel, where he will provide legal advice and recommendations to the FMC chair and commissioners on regulatory and policy matters, the commission announced Nov. 7. Hughey has previously served as the commission’s deputy general counsel and most recently worked as a foreign service officer with the State Department. Katia Kroutil had been serving as the commission’s acting general counsel and is now listed on the FMC’s website as acting assistant general counsel for general law and regulation.
New guidance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. signals that the committee is preparing to increase its enforcement efforts, law firms said this week. Companies should expect more scrutiny from the committee, firms said, adding that completing and documenting due-diligence before finalizing an investment transaction is growing increasingly important.
DOJ's recent moves charging 11 individuals and various corporate entities for their roles in schemes to evade U.S. sanctions and export controls on Russia signal the government's continuing efforts to "aggressively enforce" restrictions on Russia, law firm Paul Weiss said in an analysis posted online Oct. 26. As a result, multilateral corporations with international supply chains need to ramp up compliance measures and be aware that international cooperation has expanded the reach of U.S. sanctions enforcement, the firm said.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, in a Federal Registernotice published Oct. 26, asked for applications from people who would like to serve on panels that review final determinations in antidumping or countervailing duty proceedings and amendments to AD/CVD statutes of a USMCA Party. These people would be on the roster from April 1, 2023, through March 31, 2024. Applications are due by Nov. 30, and can be submitted at www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2022-0015.
The failures of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and Korea Telecommunications Corporation (KT) provide poignant lessons on how to beef up protection against corruption risks, particularly within the telecommunications sector, lawyers at Hogan Lovells said in an analysis posted on the firm's website Oct. 11. The sector "is particularly vulnerable to corruption," meaning compliance functions must look to "double down on their efforts to ensure that robust and efficient processes" are implemented and stress-tested, the post said.
The Department of Homeland Security in a Sept. 28 move temporarily waived the Jones Act -- a law requiring goods traveling between U.S. ports to be carried on U.S.-made and -flagged ships -- for vessels headed to Puerto Rico to provide relief from Hurricane Fiona. The waiver runs Sept. 13-24.
Oracle Corporation will pay more than $23 million to settle charges it violated parts of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when its Turkish, Emirati and Indian subsidiaries used slush funds to bribe foreign officials for business from 2016 to 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced. The company agreed to pay around $8 million in disgorgement and a $15 million penalty, along with agreeing to "cease and desist" from violating the anti-bribery, books and records and internal accounting controls elements of the FCPA, SEC said. Oracle did so without admitting or denying the SEC findings.