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.
Brazil recently announced antidumping duty decisions on certain products from mainland China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Sept. 2. Brazil ended without judgment its AD duty investigation of certain hosiery and socks from Hong Kong and mainland China, saying the “merit analysis was impaired due to a lack of accuracy and inadequacy in the information provided by the domestic industry.” Brazil also determined that certain pot rests, cup holders, trays and cutting boards fall within the scope of its AD duty on certain Chinese ceramic tableware, except for certain cutlery utensils. The country also renewed for five years an AD duty on certain mainland Chinese polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film (see 2108020010), and further amended that order by revising the AD measure from, in U.S. currency, 65 cents per kilogram to $654.95 per tonne.
Thailand recently approved the use of certain export certificates for imports of U.S. wine, beer and distilled spirits, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a Sept. 1 report. The country will allow the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation form’s Model Wine Export Certificate for U.S. wine exports and the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s Certificate of Sanitation for U.S. beer and spirit exports. The exports will require “specific attestation,” USDA said, but the alcohol shipments won’t require any “additional testing or certificate of analysis.” USDA said it expects the approved certificates to “ease the import process” for U.S. alcohol shipments and “possibly help encourage new export opportunities.”
The Commerce Department should investigate the potentially unfair pricing activities of a Chinese drone company that was recently placed on the Entity List, two lawmakers said in an Aug. 31 letter to Secretary Gina Raimondo. Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., said Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies Ltd., which was added to the Entity List in December (see 2012180039), may have dropped its prices for drones by as much as 70% in 2015, which allowed it to capture a significant share of the U.S. drone market. The lawmakers also said DJI should remain on the Entity List and deserves “additional scrutiny” because its drones have been used for human rights abuses in China. “We ask that DJI remain on the Department’s Entity List and that the Department investigate its pricing of consumer drones which has harmed American consumers,” the letter said. Commerce didn’t comment.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is proposing to list methiopropamine, a central nervous stimulant that is structurally related to the schedule II stimulants methamphetamine and amphetamine, under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it said in a notice released Sept. 1. “If finalized, this action would impose the regulatory controls and administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions applicable to schedule I controlled substances on persons who handle (manufacture, distribute, reverse distribute, import, export, engage in research, conduct instructional activities or chemical analysis with, or possess), or propose to handle, methiopropamine.” Comments are due by Oct. 4.
A proposal to use a carbon border adjustment tax as a pay-for in legislation Congress hopes to pass this fall faces many obstacles, both political and technical. Politically, it must get support from all 50 Democrats in the Senate, including Sen. Joe Manchin, whose home state of West Virginia exports about a third of its coal; in some recent years, coal was about half of all exports from the state.
The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls recent settlement with Keysight Technologies shows the agency is growing more aggressive with certain compliance requirements and violations involving software and technical data, Miller & Chevalier said Aug. 18. At the same time, DDTC continues to reward cooperation and other mitigating factors with significant penalty reductions as it tries to incentivize companies to voluntarily disclose violations and work with the agency during its investigation.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is proposing to list mesocarb, a substance with stimulating properties marketed in Russia for treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that has no approved medical use and no known therapeutic application in the U.S., under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it said in a notice published Aug. 11. “If finalized, this action would impose the regulatory controls and administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions applicable to schedule I controlled substances on persons who handle (manufacture, distribute, reverse distribute, import, export, engage in research, conduct instructional activities or chemical analysis with, or possess), or propose to handle, mesocarb.” Comments are due by Oct. 12.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts was right to allow a new trial for Joseph Baptiste in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit said in an Aug. 9 opinion. Concurring with the district court that Baptiste's counsel was of such deficient performance to allow a retrial, a three-judge panel at the circuit court denied the U.S.'s appeal of the decision to run the trial back.
More than a third of Republican senators are telling President Joe Biden that the European Union's plan to apply tariffs to aluminum, cement, fertilizers, iron and steel from countries that are not pricing carbon as the EU does is protectionism in disguise. They noted that U.S. steel is already more carbon efficient than the product is in the EU.