Forty-five members notified the World Trade Organization's Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices of new antidumping measures they imposed during the first six months of 2021, while 14 reported no new AD duties in this period, the WTO said. Delegates at the committee's Oct. 27 meeting also reviewed notifications of new legislation from Colombia, India and the United Kingdom, while continuing to review legislation from Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Peru, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. The WTO's Anti-Dumping Agreement requires members to submit notifications of all preliminary and final antidumping actions that were taken Jan. 1-June 30. Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Dominican Republic, the EU, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, the U.K. and the U.S. submitted notifications, the WTO said. Committee Chair Ahmed Al-Sulaiti of Qatar pointed to the updated handbook as a guide for members' notification obligations under the AD agreement. along with technical assistance available through the WTO Secretariat.
The Bureau of Industry and Security plans to implement more emerging technology controls during this fiscal year, Karen Nies-Vogel, BIS’s director of the Office of Exporter Services, said, speaking briefly during an Oct. 28 meeting of the Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee. Nies-Vogel said the agency has so far issued 38 emerging technology controls and is “looking forward” to implementing more in the coming months and “years to come.”
Shippers were caught off guard by a new surcharge announced this week by the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports that could exacerbate unfair detention and demurrage fees, members of the Federal Maritime Commission’s Shipper Advisory Committee said. The ports announced a surcharge to ocean carriers for containers that dwell at terminals, a fee that will likely be passed on to shippers, members said during the committee’s inaugural meeting Oct. 27 (see 2109100008 and 2110140001).
Switzerland added eight people to its Russia sanctions list, aligning with the European Union, the Swiss Federal Council said. The listed individuals, according to a notice from the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, are Mikhail Nikolaevich Belousov, Kievskiy District Court judge; Andrey Nikolaevich Dolgopolov, chairman of the Kievskiy District Court; Yevgeniy Sergeevich Kolpikov, military prosecutor; Magomed Farmanovich Magomedov, special cases investigator; Leonid Vladimirovich Mikhailiuk, head of the Federal Security Service in Crimea and Sevastopol; Viktor Anatolyevich Mozhelianskiy, vice chairman of the Central District Court in Simferopol; Galina Vladimirovna Redko, Crimea Supreme Court judge; and Vladimir Nikolaevich Terentev, who heads the main investigation department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. The eight were listed due to their role in undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., reintroduced a bill that would require a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. for all “greenfield” investments made by certain Chinese businesses on U.S. soil. The bill, introduced last week, would specifically require CFIUS to look at any foreign investment that “involves the acquisition of real estate in the U.S. and the establishment of a U.S. business on such real estate” and that “results in China’s direct or indirect control of that U.S. business.” These investments would trigger a mandatory declaration with CFIUS if China’s government has a “substantial interest” in the deal.
A U.S.-based technology company “likely” violated U.S. export controls against Huawei for more than a year but hasn't yet faced penalties by the Bureau of Industry and Security, Republican staff on the Senate Commerce Committee said Oct. 26. The committee’s minority staff said Seagate Technology likely continued shipping hard disk drives to Huawei after BIS amended its foreign direct product rule last year, which imposed controls on goods that are the direct product of certain technology or software subject to the Export Administration Regulations (see 2005150058 and 2008170029).
Although it's not known what sort of electric vehicle purchase incentives might be included in Build Back Better legislation, Canada and Mexico are arguing to congressional leaders that offering larger tax credits for U.S.-assembled electric vehicles hurts both the integrated North American auto industry and undermines the USMCA.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee's release of export licensing information for Huawei and China’s chipmaker SMIC (see 2110210073) may not present an accurate picture of licensing approvals and may mislead industry, the Commerce Department said Oct. 22. Although the agency approved more than a combined $100 billion worth of export licenses for shipments to Huawei and SMIC from November 2020 through April, the statistics didn’t reflect pending applications set to be denied, which would have significantly lowered the percentage of approved applications for both companies.
The Treasury Department expects to issue more crypto-related sanctions and allocate more resources to better target the digital assets of cybercriminals, Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said. Speaking during a Center for a New American Security Event event last week, Adeyemo also said the agency is placing a high priority on multilateral designations and is hoping to better understand trading partners’ concerns about U.S. secondary sanctions.
Sun Life Financial, a Canadian financial services firm, plans to submit a “pre-filing draft of a notice” to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. regarding its acquisition of U.S. oral healthcare company DentaQuest. The parties will “use reasonable best efforts to provide any information requested” by CFIUS, Sun Life said in an October Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Sun Life plans to buy DentaQuest for $2.48 billion.