Jacob Kopnick

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a text-only Oct. 4 note told counsel in the massive Section 301 litigation to review the court's revised calendar for December 2024 through May 2025 to check for scheduling conflicts. The move indicates that the case won't be heard during the court's November sitting and will be heard during the first full week of December at the earliest. Matt Nicely, counsel for the plaintiffs, confirmed that the case won't be heard in November and is hopeful for a December oral argument, though he said a decision on the hearing date won't be known "for a couple weeks" (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4 agreed to hear a lawsuit brought by the Mexican government against a group of gun manufacturers and one gun distributor for their role in aiding the trafficking of guns into Mexico. The lawsuit accuses the gun makers of marketing, distributing, selling and designing guns in ways that knowingly arm Mexican drug cartels through corrupt gun dealers and illegal sales practices (Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Sup. Ct. # 23-1141).

Four Kentucky residents were arrested on Oct. 4 after conspiring to ship firearms to Iraq without obtaining an export license, DOJ said. They were indicted on conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and smuggle goods from the U.S., among other charges.

The District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Oct. 1 unsealed an indictment against Russian citizen Aleksandr Ryzhenkov, the "second-in-command" of the Russian cybercriminal group Evil Corp., for using the BitPaymer ransomware variant against various U.S. individuals to "hold their sensitive data for ransom," DOJ announced.

A Russian citizen living in North Georgia, Feliks Medvedev, was sentenced on Oct. 2 to three years and 10 months in prison for conducting an "unlicensed money transmitting business," which saw the transfer of over $150 million in Russian money. Medvedev was also sentenced to three years of supervised release following his prison sentence and told to pay a $10,000 fine, DOJ said.

The U.S. agreed to liquidate some of importer LE Commodities' steel tube entries without Section 232 duties and refund any duties paid, per the terms of a settlement reached by the parties in the importer's case against its denied requests for Section 232 exclusions (LE Commodities v. United States, CIT # 22-00245).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 3 stayed the briefing schedule in a trio of cases brought by exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) while it considers the company's motion to consolidate the three appeals. All three cases center on the sunset review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Turkey (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2242).

The EU General Court on Oct. 2 upheld the validity of the EU prohibition on the provision of legal advisory services to the Russian government and to entities established in Russia. The court said the sanction doesn't undermine the right of all persons to be advised by a lawyer for "conducting, pre-empting or anticipating judicial proceedings."

There have been no lawsuits recently filed at the Court of International Trade.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 2 rejected exporter Chandan Steel Limited's motion for reconsideration of the court's previous decision sustaining the 145.25% total adverse facts available rate set against the exporter in the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on steel flanges from India.