A Federal Maritime Commission administrative law judge April 28 denied a complaint by Texas importer Visual Comfort & Co. (VCC) against Chinese ocean carrier COSCO Shipping Lines Co., saying VCC presented insufficient evidence that COSCO charged it $1.2 million in unfair demurrage, detention and storage fees.
Bahrain formally accepted the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies on April 28, bringing the number of countries that have accepted the deal to 97. The WTO needs 14 more countries to accept to get to two-thirds of the membership, the threshold for the agreement to take effect.
The European Commission on April 28 imposed definitive countervailing duties on mobile access equipment from China. The duties range from 7.3% to 14.2% and accompany antidumping duties imposed by the comission on the same products in January. The commission said the combined AD and CVD measures now range from 20.6% and 66.7%.
The State Department last week released its annual report to Congress of authorized exports of defense goods and services to foreign countries and international organizations during FY 2024. The report covers direct commercial sales of licensed items for permanent export under the Arms Export Control Act and includes export statistics for each country and organization, including aggregate dollar values of the exports, their quantities and data on the actual shipments of those licensed exports.
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls this week released its notifications to Congress of recently proposed export licenses. The notifications, which cover licenses submitted from April through June and July through September of 2024, include exports to Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Finland, Israel, Canada, Ukraine, Norway, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.
Several speakers at a Capitol Hill event hosted by the Burma Research Institute April 28 called for sanctioning Myanmar’s military junta for human rights violations against civilians.
The U.K. issued a new version of a Russia-related legal services general license to reset the cap on fees that can be paid to British law firms by parties subject to Russia-related sanctions. The legal fees cap is set at about $2.68 million (or 2 million pounds) per law firm and the expenses cap at 10% of the legal fees, up to about $268,000 (or 200,000 pounds), for the duration of the license. The license takes effect April 29 and expires Oct. 28. The previous license expired April 28 (see 2410290017).
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned three vessels and their owners for supporting the Yemen-based Houthis and the group's attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, including by supplying them with oil shipments.
Japanese lawmakers this week urged the Trump administration to continue engaging with allies on economic security issues and to not close off America from Japanese investment, saying Japanese companies will help grow American exports and reduce the U.S. trade deficit.
Recent U.S. trade actions, such as the IEEPA tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum derivatives, and the temporarily paused reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries worldwide, could cause global container volumes to slump by 1% in 2025, according to U.K-based maritime shipping advisory firm Drewry.