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 following are short summaries of recent CBP “NY” rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade granted the Department of Justice's motion for extension of the time of service in a penalty action against Kevin Ho, the owner and director of importer Atria, in a Sept. 14 order. After being briefed by both Ho and DOJ, Judge Timothy Reif also decided not to quash service even though the U.S. served Ho's counsel with the wrong summons and complaint (United States v. Chu-Chiang “Kevin” Ho, et al., CIT #19-00038).
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 14 struck down two Commerce Department scope rulings that found door thresholds are not finished products and therefore within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce's contention that the door thresholds from Worldwide Door Components and Columbia Aluminum Products were not finished products is contradicted by record evidence, remanding the rulings to the agency for reconsideration.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Sept. 14 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Commerce Department's decision to continue applying adverse facts available due to the Chinese government's alleged shortcoming in its questionnaire responses during a countervailing duty investigation runs contrary to a court order from the Court of International Trade, plaintiff Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. said in a Sept. 13 filing. Commerce held that AFA was warranted, in part, because the Chinese government did not fully answer its questions on subsidy programs for synthetic yarn and caustic soda. The court ruled to the contrary, making the continued use of AFA in Commerce's remand results unsupported and contrary to law, the brief said (Yama Ribbons and Bows Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #19-00047).
The Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available when weighing Bosun Tool's country of origin information using a first-in-first-out (FIFO) methodology was justified, Justice Department said in Sept. 13 comments at the Court of International Trade (Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers' Coalition v. United States, CIT #17-00167).
Five steel companies filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in support of a full court rehearing in a critical case on presidential power regarding the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. The brief, filed Sept. 7 by Oman Fasteners, Huttig Building Products, Koki Holdings America, J. Conrad and Metropolitan Staple, was accepted by the appellate court Sept. 9. The five companies tap into the dissenting opinion at the Federal Circuit along with the Court of International Trade's original ruling to make the case that the appellate court erred in finding that the president could hike the Section 232 duties on Turkish goods well beyond procedural time limits (Transpacific Steel LLC, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #20-2157).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Sept. 9 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
A district court judge in Massachusetts sentenced Chinese national Shuren Qin to two years in prison for exporting hydrophones with anti-submarine applications to a Chinese military university on the Commerce Department's Entity List, in a Sept. 1 sentencing memorandum. Judge Denise Casper carried out the sentencing and also ruled that Qin will be placed on supervised release for two years following his prison sentence and will pay a fine of $20,000 (United States v. Shuren Qin, D.C. Mass. #18-10205).