Rana Tanveer, a Beckley, West Virginia, resident, pleaded guilty April 20 to committing an export fraud violation by submitting false export valuations for certain items shipped to Pakistan, DOJ announced. Tanveer faces a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not apply to criminal cases, the Supreme Court of the U.S. held in an April 17 opinion, opening Turkish state-owned Halkbank up to criminal prosecution for conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the author of the opinion, said the text of the FSIA, which the bank claimed protected it from prosecution, clearly shows it only addresses civil suits. Six of the court's justices sided with Kavanaugh, with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissenting (Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. U.S., Sup. Ct. # 21-1450).
The Bureau of Industry and Security on April 19 fined Seagate Technology $300 million for violating U.S. export controls against Huawei in what it said is the “largest standalone administrative penalty in BIS history.” The agency said the California-based company and its branch in Singapore sold more than 7 million export-controlled hard disk drives to Huawei in violation of the BIS foreign direct product rule.
The State Department recently amended the Specially Designated Global Terrorist designation for Qari Amjad to reflect that he uses two additional aliases, Mufti Hazrat Deroji and Mufti Hazrat Ali, with Mufti Hazrat Deroji “the primary name for this person.” The State Department originally designated Amjad in December (see 2212140015).
DOJ this week announced a $365,000 settlement with General Motors over claims that the car maker -- in an attempt to comply with U.S. export control laws -- discriminated against non-U.S. citizens in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The agency also released a fact sheet to help employers avoid citizenship status discrimination when seeking to comply with export control laws.
The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a new set of policy "clarifications" this week that it hopes will increase the number of voluntary self-disclosures (VSDs) it receives for serious export violations. One clarification says the agency could increase penalties on companies that fail to disclose a “significant” potential violation, while another clarification could reward companies that tip off BIS about their competitors’ wrongdoings.
The Bureau of Industry and Security recently suspended the export privileges of four people, including two for making false statements to the government and two others for illegally exporting guns or ammunition to Mexico.
Colombia “ignored its own Essential Facts report” when it extended by five years its countervailing duty on U.S. ethanol imports, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in an April 10 report. Colombia issued an essential facts report in January on its expiry review of the duties, which “argued that there is evidence of continued subsidies for U.S. ethanol, but no clear evidence that the current CVD improved the local ethanol industry’s economic performance,” USDA said. The report calculated a recommended CVD of .035¢/kg, lower than the original .066¢/kg, but Colombia “ignored its own report and issued a final ruling," USDA said, and extended the original investigation duty of .066¢/kg on U.S. ethanol for five years.
The EPA should exempt certain export activities from new proposed reporting requirements under a significant new use rule for per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), U.S. trade groups told the agency in recent comments. If EPA doesn’t exempt those activities, the proposed rule could disrupt chemical supply chains and other sectors that use PFAS, including the energy, instrument and machinery manufacturing industries, the groups said.
Australia will pause its World Trade Organization case against China on barley for three months while Beijing reviews its restrictions, Australia announced this week. China placed 80.5% duties on Australian barley in 2020. The parties recently carried out "constructive dialogue at all levels," leading to a three- to four-month reprieve in the WTO case, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said April 11.