Mohsen Mohammadi-Mohammadi, an Iranian national who has lived in Iran and Laredo, Texas, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for his role in an international trade-based money laundering scheme, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas said Feb. 9. District Court Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo also ordered the forfeiture of $177,345 -- the amount of the money laundered through Mohammadi's business. From 2011 to 2013, Mohammadi and others conspired to launder drug trafficking money through a scheme dubbed the "Black Market Peso Exchange." The co-conspirators would pick up the drug proceeds from various U.S. cities then transport it to Laredo, where the money was then laundered through commodities businesses such as perfume vendors, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Mohammadi's business was called Mav Trading Inc.
Court of International Trade activity
Erik Autor, former president of the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones, has joined customs and trade law firm Barlow & Co. as of counsel, he announced on LinkedIn. Autor's background includes a clerkship at the Court of International Trade and working at Skadden Arps as a lawyer in its international trade practice group. He will assist companies with their customs and trade matters, the firm said.
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls this week updated and issued a host of new guidance to address industry questions related to debarments, disclosures and export controls violations. The 17 new FAQs, published about three weeks after the agency said it was preparing new guidance at the request of the Defense Trade Advisory Group, address a range of compliance issues, among them what should be included in voluntary disclosures, how the agency treats those disclosures, how they affect licensing, and differences between a debarment rescission and reinstatement of export privileges.
A World Trade Organization dispute panel found the U.S. violated WTO rules during investigations leading up to the imposition of countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain. The panel found that the U.S. erred when finding that subsidies given to Spanish raw olive growers under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy were specific to the olive growers, a finding that was inconsistent with measures in the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The Court of International Trade independently came to the same conclusion. In June, the court said that the countervailing duties could not stand since they were not specific to Spanish olive growers (see 2106170075). The panel also said the Commerce Department's regulation permitting it to deem the full amount of subsidies taken in by raw olive growers to have passed through to the downstream producers lacks any real factual basis and is inconsistent with WTO rules. The panel did not find, however, that the antidumping duties on the same goods violated the trade body's rules. "The Commission's efforts to vigorously defend the interests and rights of EU producers, in this case growers of Spanish ripe olives, are now paying off," Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's commissioner for trade, said. "The WTO has upheld our claims about anti-subsidy duties being unjustified and in violation of WTO rules. These duties severely hit Spanish olive producers, who saw their exports to the US fall dramatically as a result. We now expect the US to take the appropriate steps to implement the WTO ruling, so that exports of ripe olives from Spain to the US can resume under normal conditions.”
Three former U.S. intelligence community or military members -- Marc Baier, Ryan Adams and Daniel Gericke -- entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, agreeing to pay more than $1.68 million to resolve export control violation charges, the Department of Justice said. The trio worked as senior managers at a United Arab Emirates-based company that carried out computer hacking operations to benefit the UAE government during 2016 to 2019, DOJ said. All three were told repeatedly that their work constituted a “defense service” under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, requiring a license from the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. Nevertheless, all three continued their hacking without a license, court documents laid out.
The State Department released the 2020 Digest of United States Practice in International Law, detailing developments in the field for the 2020 calendar year. The publication provides a record of the “views and practice of the U.S. Government in public and private international law,” the State Department said Aug. 18. The publication discusses key court decisions on topics ranging from nationality, citizenship and passports to international crimes. A section on international trade covers investment disputes under free trade agreements, World Trade Organization developments and intellectual property and Section 301 proceedings.
The Mexican government launched a lawsuit on Aug. 4 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against 10 gun manufacturers for their role in the spread of firearms in their nation. In a fiery complaint, Mexico decried the actions of the manufacturers who "design, market, distribute, and sell guns in ways they know routinely arm the drug cartels in Mexico." Through the use of corrupt gun dealers and illegal sales practices, these gun makers traffick weapons across the U.S.-Mexico border and cause countless death, destruction and economic harm, Mexico said.
A Japanese and a Korean economist said that trade tensions between their two countries are no longer really disrupting Korea's semiconductor industry, though they are still increasing costs for some of the Japanese exporters.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has proposed that CBP be given the authority to exclude from entry into the U.S. any articles produced by a foreign firm that misappropriated a trade secret, when that theft has been proven by either a court or the International Trade Commission, under Section 337. The amendment, published May 24 in the Congressional Record, notes that the Section 337 process may not provide complete relief "because the foreign person has used or is reasonably likely to use the misappropriated trade secret in the home country of the foreign person or a third country."
The 22 states, along with Washington, D.C., that challenged the Trump administration's decision to transfer "ghost gun" blueprints from the U.S. Munitions List to the less-restrictive Commerce Control List will not seek a review of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's decision to greenlight the move. According to a May 18 consent motion, lawyers for the State Department and the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls requested that the court immediately issue the mandate in the case, claiming that they received the go-ahead from the plaintiffs. Brendan Selby, counsel for the plaintiff State of Washington, told the defense that the states consent to the "immediate issuance of the mandate."