Amsted Wins ITC Recommendation For 10-Year Exclusion Order And Cease And Desist Orders Against Cast Steel Railway Wheel Competitors
10.30.09
McAndrews, Held & Malloy announced today another victory for its client, Chicago-based Amsted Industries Incorporated, before the International Trade Commission (ITC), Investigation No. 337-TA-655.
On Oct. 16, 2009, ITC Administrative Law Judge Carl C. Charneski determined that four Respondents, two Chinese companies (Tianrui Group Company Limited and Tianrui Group Foundry Company Limited) and two U.S. companies (Standard Car Truck Company, Inc., which Wilmerding, Pa.-based Wabtec Corporation (NYSE-WAB) acquired in 2008, and Barber Tianrui Railway Supply, LLC), have violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Specifically, those Respondents have violated Section 337 by misappropriating numerous Amsted trade secrets relating to the manufacture of cast steel railway wheels, importing into the United States cast steel railway wheels and substantially injuring, and threatening substantial injury to, Amsted’s domestic cast steel railway wheel operations, which manufacture Amsted’s Griffin® wheels.
On Oct. 29, 2009, Judge Charneski issued his recommended remedy against the Respondents’ for their illegal conduct. In particular, Judge Charneski recommends a 10-year Limited Exclusion Order “that covers all of respondents’ cast steel railways wheels and products containing the same that are the result of respondents’ misappropriation.” Judge Charneski also recommends Cease and Desist Orders “directed toward each respondent that will prohibit them from selling, advertising, promoting, shipping, distributing, or otherwise transferring within the United States, any Tianrui wheels manufactured abroad using the ABC Process.” Significantly, Judge Charneski also reaffirmed: “In this investigation, all asserted trade secrets have been misappropriated.”
“The 10-year length of the recommended exclusion order and cease and desist orders reflects the massive misappropriation and how to fairly remedy it,” said Greg Vogler, a McAndrews shareholder and Amsted’s lead counsel on the case. “We believe that what the Judge has recommended is, at a minimum, needed to correct the competitive injustice that Respondents sought to achieve.”
“Amsted’s trade secrets have been researched and developed through significant investments of time, money and effort,” added McAndrews shareholder Dean Pelletier “Those investments plus Respondents’ misappropriation of more than 100 trade secrets necessitate at least a 10-year exclusion order and 10-year cease and desist orders.”
The ITC’s final determination on remedy is expected to be issued in several months.
Amsted is represented by McAndrews attorneys Greg Vogler, Dean A. Pelletier, Wil Rao and Yufeng (Ethan) Ma and by Bryan Cave LLP attorneys Lyle Vander Schaaf and Jay H. Reiziss.