Fifty-eight World Trade Organization member nations at a July 22 WTO General Council meeting supported an African Group proposal to get an early start to the director-general selection process. The proposal also asks sitting D-G Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to "make herself available to serve a second term," the WTO said. General Council Chair Petter Olberg of Norway said he heard "unanimous, broad and strong support, both for the current D-G to make herself available and to run again, and for the process to be started as soon as possible."
Jacob Kopnick
Jacob Kopnick, Associate Editor, is a reporter for Trade Law Daily and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and International Trade Today. He joined the Warren Communications News team in early 2021 covering a wide range of topics including trade-related court cases and export issues in Europe and Asia. Jacob's background is in trade policy, having spent time with both CSIS and USTR researching international trade and its complexities. Jacob is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Public Policy.
Litigants sparred at a July 23 oral argument at the Court of International Trade on whether the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel wheels from China cover wheels shipped from Thailand with either a rim or a disc made in China. The parties disagreed on whether a prior scope ruling from the Commerce Department spoke to whether these "mixed" goods -- wheels made with either a Chinese-origin rim or disc, but not both -- are covered by the AD/CVD scope (Asia Wheel v. United States, CIT # 23-00096).
The Commerce Department improperly used an invoice date as the date of sale of goods in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete rebar from Turkey, exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret told the Court of International Trade. Filing a motion for judgment on July 23, Kaptan said Commerce should have used the contract date as the date of sale (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 24-00018).
An Iranian national was extradited to the U.S. from the U.K. on charges related to his alleged role in a scheme to evade U.S. export controls by shipping electronic testing technology to Iran, DOJ announced. Saeid Haji Agha Mousaei made his initial appearance in an Illinois U.S. District Court on July 22, where he faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., smuggling goods from the U.S., wire fraud and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Judges Kimberly Moore, Sharon Prost and Richard Taranto on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recommended that the court's Judicial Council sanction Judge Pauline Newman from hearing new cases for another year. The three judges previously sanctioned Newman, 97, for one year for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into her fitness to continue serving on the bench (see 2309200024). With the end of the one-year ban looming, the judges asked Newman to show cause why she shouldn't be subject to a renewed sanction. Moore, Prost and Taranto said that Newman hasn't shown any evidence to undermine the vast record "raising serious concerns about Judge Newman’s cognitive state," and she hasn't cooperated with the investigation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 24 denied exporter Saha Thai Steel Pipe Co.'s petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc of the court's decision to include dual-stenciled pipe in the scope of the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2181).
DOJ reached a deal with the former general counsel of 1Malaysia Development Berhad, "Jasmine" Loo Ai Swan, to recover artwork by Pablo Picasso and a Switzerland-based financial account linked to funds allegedly taken as part of the 1MDB scheme, DOJ announced. The agency also obtained forfeiture orders on assets bought with proceeds from the scheme by Low Take Jho, also known as Jho Low, including diamond jewelry and artwork from Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, the agency said.
The Court of International Trade on July 23 said CBP didn't have the authority to extend an order from the court enjoining liquidation of various entries to imports entered by Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply. Judge Mark Barnett dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, finding that because Acquisition 362 wasn't a party to a separate case challenging the antidumping duty rate assessed on the company's goods, it wasn't subject to the court's order suspending liquidation of various tire entries.
The Commerce Department on July 23 extended filing deadlines in various antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings by six days due to the recent global outage of Microsoft systems caused by a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: