Sunday, October 17, 2010

U.S. Producers of Plastic Grocery and Shopping Bags Applaud Investigation and Conviction of Importers Engaged in Illegal Circumvention of Antidumping

(KansasCity.com)

Owners of a Chicago-area importer, S&P Plastics, Inc., were sentenced last month for their role in defrauding U.S. Customs and failing to pay antidumping duties on imports of plastic grocery and shopping bags (referred to as polyethylene retail carrier bags, or “PRCBs”) from China. Young Seung Shin and Peili Ding admitted to falsely declaring certain entries of shopping bags as not subject to an antidumping order on PRCBs from China. The two were sentenced to prison terms of six months and twelve months, respectively, and are subject to additional fines and forfeiture of $182,871 attributable to the lost duties. In addition, the government seized all containers of the bags at issue that had not yet cleared Customs.

These convictions arose out of a joint investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“Customs”), and were conducted in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Joe Dorn, a partner at the law firm of King & Spalding and counsel to the PRCB Committee, an ad hoc coalition of U.S. plastic bag manufacturers, applauded the government’s enforcement efforts. “We greatly appreciate the dedication and hard work of ICE, Customs, and the U.S. Attorney in Chicago which resulted in these convictions and which demonstrate that illegal circumvention of antidumping orders on plastic bags will not be tolerated,” said Mr. Dorn.
Read more here.