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Yahoo! June
18, 2003.
Group: Cuba Trade Show Licenses Denied
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA - With U.S.-Cuban relations in a particularly difficult time, the
Bush administration has denied the request of a U.S. firm to stage a second
American farm products trade show in communist Cuba, a leading trade information
group reported Tuesday.
The U.S.-Cuba Trade and Business Council reported in its weekly newsletter
that the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control denied the request
by PWN Exhibicon International LLC, of Westport, Conn., on June 2. The company
hoped to stage its second agribusiness fair in the Cuban capital in January.
Washington also denied the company's request for a license to hold its
second American health care trade fair in Cuba, also planned for January,
according to the council.
The New York-based council among the most authoritative sources of
information on trade between the two nations.
The newsletter included a copy of the letter from the Office of Foreign
Assets Control, which said the licenses would not be granted "based on
foreign policy guidance from the Department of State."
In Washington, Treasury Department spokesman Taylor Griffin said he had no
specifics about the action, but said the Bush administration "is committed
to the full and fair enforcement of the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
"As President Bush has said, 'without meaningful reform, trade with
Cuba would do nothing more than line the pockets of Fidel Castro and his
cronies,'" said Griffin.
PWN Exhibicon International, operated by veteran trade fair organizer Peter
Nathan, put together the first huge U.S. agribusiness fair in Havana last fall,
as well as a U.S. health care product fair in January 2000.
Attempts to reach Nathan for comment were not successful Tuesday night.
Nathan's company organized the U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition that
brought more than 900 representatives of 291 American agri-businesses to
Havana's Convention Palace last September. More than 16,000 Cubans attended the
fair.
During the exhibition, the Cuban government signed contracts to purchase
about $92 million in American farm products under an exception to the
four-decade-old U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean country.
The U.S. Healthcare Exhibition two years before brought more than 300
representatives of 97 American companies to Cuba for the show of American
medical products. More than 8,000 Cuban health care professionals visited that
exhibition.
American companies have sold more than $200 million worth of farm products
to Cuba since late 2001, when Fidel Castro's government decided to take
advantage of a new exception to U.S. trade sanctions. The law, passed in 2000,
allows the sale of American food and other agricultural products to Cuba on a
cash basis.
Food purchases have included bulk sales of grains such as wheat and rice,
dried legumes, chicken, apples and even some brand-name packaged products.
Under the same law, a Jacksonville, Fl., lumber producer is beginning
shipments to Cuba this month, making it the first American company to sell wood
to the island since Cuban revolution in 1959.
Overzealous Closing Causes New Trial Over Cuban Trade
Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer. Law.com.
Wednesday June 18, 2:02 am ET
Finding that a federal prosecutor "got carried away" during his
closing argument, a federal judge has ordered a new trial for two men and a
corporation on charges of violating the Trading With the Enemy Act and the Cuban
Assets Control regulations.
In her 33-page opinion in United States v. Brodie, U.S. District Judge Mary
A. McLaughlin of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found that Assistant U.S.
Attorney Joseph Poluka's closing argument included accounts of "deception,
concealment and obstruction" by the defendants on trial, but that Poluka's
account "was not supported by the evidence."
Specifically, McLaughlin found that Poluka improperly argued that one
witness had testified about documents that were destroyed, and that two others
had lied to government agents.
McLaughlin said she was also "very concerned about the impact on the
jury" of Poluka's "repeated use of various forms of the word lie."
In his closing speech, McLaughlin noted, Poluka repeatedly used the terms "lies,"
"double lie," and "pack of lies."
"This language is inflammatory and has no place in the argument of an
Assistant United States Attorney. These are words that stir up the jury to
decide the case not on a fair and objective review of the testimony of the
witnesses and the documents but on emotion," McLaughlin wrote.
McLaughlin also found that Poluka's improper arguments were made worse when
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy "vouched" for Poluka's character
in the government's rebuttal argument.
In his rebuttal speech, Levy told the jury: "What you have seen from
Mr. Poluka is something I've known for a long time, a man who is passionate and
committed about his work, but I think you've also seen a man who is extremely
fair and tries his best to do what is right."
McLaughlin found that Levy's remarks made Poluka's improper arguments even
worse.
"When an extremely personable and able prosecutor tells a jury that the
defendants have been shredding documents and lying to government agents and
calls the defendants liars, and when a second prosecutor then tells the jury
that the first prosecutor is passionate, committed, extremely fair, and tries to
do what is right, it would have to be a very special jury that is not influenced
by such argument," McLaughlin wrote.
"I cannot conclude that we had such a jury here," McLaughlin
wrote.
In her closing paragraph, McLaughlin criticized Poluka, but also made clear
that she "reluctantly" granted to the defense motion for a new trial
because she considered the prosecutor's mistake to be a "last minute"
lapse in judgment that caused serious prejudice to the defendants' right to a
fair trial.
"It is easier for a prosecutor, when giving a closing argument, to call
the defendants names and misstate the evidence than to come to grips with the
real evidence and carefully rebut the defenses that have been presented. But the
latter is the job of an Assistant United States Attorney," McLaughlin
wrote.
"The prosecutor in this case conducted himself throughout the complex
pretrial proceedings and the trial as a skilled advocate and a person of
integrity. Somehow, at the last minute, perhaps in the heat of a long and
complicated trial, he got carried away," McLaughlin wrote.
McLaughlin said that while she could "certainly understand"
Poluka's actions "from a human point of view," she also "cannot
ignore conduct that may have prejudiced criminal defendants."
As a result, she said, "it is with great reluctance that the court
grants the motion for a new trial."
In the indictment, the government charged that Donald and Stefan Brodie, two
executives of Bro-Tech Corp., a Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based company, and one of its
salesmen, James Sabzali, violated the Trading With the Enemy Act and the Cuban
Assets Control regulations by selling water purification resins to Cuba.
As McLaughlin described it, there was no dispute at trial about whether the
sales to Cuba took place.
Instead, the judge said, the only issue at trial was "whether the
defendants knowingly and willfully violated the TWEA and the CACRs."
The primary defense was that Stefan Brodie, the CEO of Bro-Tech, consulted
with attorneys at various times during the alleged conspiracy and informed
Bro-Tech's sales force that any sales to Cuba had to be shipped from the United
Kingdom.
In its verdict, the jury convicted all three men and the corporation of a
conspiracy charge, but acquitted two of the men on a significant number of
underlying counts.
McLaughlin later overturned the verdict against Stefan Brodie, entering a
judgment of acquittal for him on the conspiracy charge -- the only count he was
convicted of.
Now McLaughlin has ruled that the evidence was strong enough to support
convictions of Donald Brodie, the corporation and Sabzali, but that all three
deserve a new trial due to Poluka's and Levy's closing arguments.
In her opinion, McLaughlin focused on three incidents in which prosecutor
Poluka made arguments in his closing speech that defense lawyers said were
improper and not backed up by evidence that came out during the trial.
In the first, defense lawyers said, Poluka argued that one witness had
testified about the destruction of documents.
McLaughlin agreed that Poluka's argument was not backed up by evidence and
found that it was especially prejudicial to the defense.
"In evaluating the effect on the jury of this improper argument, the
court observes that any charge of document destruction is highly inflammatory.
Recent events relating to the collapse of Enron and the criminal prosecution of
its independent auditor, Arthur Andersen, for document destruction were the
subject of intense coverage by the national news media before and during the
trial of this case," McLaughlin wrote.
"In a case such as this, where the issue for the jury was the
defendants' intent, any evidence of document destruction would have been very
relevant and powerful evidence," McLaughlin wrote.
McLaughlin also found that Poluka improperly accused Stefan Brodie of lying.
"The court is concerned about a prosecutor arguing that a defendant,
who took the stand, lied or uttered a 'pack of lies.' The government appears to
concede that it would be improper to characterize a defendant's trial testimony
in this fashion; but, argues that it is proper to characterize a defendant's
pretrial conduct in this fashion," McLaughlin wrote.
"It is the court's view that it is never proper to throw around such
inflammatory language in a criminal trial, especially when it is used to
describe a defendant. But even if it were proper to use that language about
pretrial conduct when a defendant does not take the stand, there is no way to
separate pretrial conduct from trial testimony in this case," McLaughlin
wrote.
Richard Manieri, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said the Office
is studying McLaughlin's opinion but did not have any immediate comment on it.
Sabzali was represented by attorneys Robert Welsh and Catherine Recker of
Welsh & Recker in Philadelphia.
Donald Brodie was represented by attorney Steven Kimmelman of New York.
Bro-Tech Corp. was represented by attorney Kevin Downey of Williams &
Connolly in Washington, D.C.
Attorney Greg Craig, also of Williams & Connolly, represented Stefan
Brodie. Craig's is a familiar name to some lawyers because he represented Juan
Gonzales, the father of Elian Gonzales, the Cuban boy whose custody became
embroiled in an international debate when he arrived in Florida after a
treacherous journey in which his mother had died.
Go to Law.com for legal information
and services on the web.
Fidel Castro to Visit India
Wed Jun 18,10:10 AM ET
NEW DELHI, India, 18 (AP) - Cuban President Fidel Castro, once India's close
ally, has accepted an invitation to visit India, but the date has not been set,
the Indian foreign ministry said Wednesday.
India's junior foreign minister Digvijay Singh invited Castro during a June
12-14 visit to Havana.
"He has accepted the invitation. Dates are being worked out through
diplomatic channels," foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told
reporters.
Cuba was a close ally of India for decades after the South Asian nation
gained independence from British colonial rule and New Delhi's national policies
leaned toward socialism.
India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his daughter, Indira
Gandhi, who later became the nation's leader, had warm relations with the Soviet
Union, Castro, and Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh.
Nehru and Castro were also close allies in the Nonaligned Movement, which
claimed to lean neither toward the United States nor the Soviet Union during the
Cold War.
National Foreign Trade Council Lauds Introduction of U.S.-Cuba Trademark
Protection Act of 2003
Tue Jun 17, 2:34 PM ET
WASHINGTON, June 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The National Foreign Trade Council
(NFTC) applauds today's introduction of the U.S.-Cuba Trademark Protection Act
of 2003 by a bipartisan group of leading members from the House Ways and Means
and Judiciary committees. This bill will help U.S. companies protect trademarks
registered in Cuba and prevent Cuba from becoming a haven for cyber squatters.
"American trademarks and the global recognition of brand names are
vitally important to the U.S. economy. For the first time in 40 years these
brand names are appearing in Cuban stores, but they are vulnerable to a
special-interest U.S. law passed in 1998 that breaches U.S. treaty commitments
to Cuba. That law gives Fidel Castro the option of choosing not to honor the
various international treaties protecting U.S. trademarks in Cuba," said
Bill Reinsch, president of the NFTC. According to Reinsch, "the U.S.-Cuba
Trademark Protection Act removes that option."
The bill was introduced by Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jeff Flake
(R-Ariz.) Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), Rep. Amo Houghton Jr. (R-N.Y.), Rep.
Robert Matsui (D-Calif.) and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D). Rep. Gregory Meeks
(D-N.Y) of the House International Relations Committee also is a co-sponsor of
the bill.
"Until the introduction of this legislation, there was no mechanism in
place for U.S. companies to monitor the accuracy, reliability and stability of
the Cuban government's registration and renewal process. The U.S.-Cuba Trademark
Protection Act of 2003 finally puts a U.S. controlled process in place so
trademark owners know that reliable records are being kept," said Reinsch.
The bill directs the Administration to initiate consultations with the
Republic of Cuba to obtain assurances that Cuba will continue to comply with its
obligations to protect and honor U.S. trademarks and trade names in Cuba under
the Paris Convention, the Inter-American Convention, and the Madrid Agreement
and Protocol. The bill similarly directs the Administration to comply with those
agreements as they apply to Cuba.
Additionally, the bill directs the Administration to obtain assurances that
Cuba will agree to follow internationally recognized procedures for resolving
disputes over Internet domain names.
The bill also directs the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to assist U.S.
companies seeking to protect and enforce their rights in Cuba by establishing a
shadow registry of U.S. trademarks registered or submitted for registration in
Cuba since January 1, 1959 and a registry of U.S. trademarks in Cuba that meet
the requirements for well-known marks as of December 31, 1958.
The bill also:
- - Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to amend the Cuban Asset Control
Regulations to create a general license that allows U.S. nationals to engage in
the full range of activities needed to protect their trademarks and trade names
against infringement in Cuba.
- - Directs the Treasury Secretary to amend the CACR to establish a general
license for the transfer of U.S. trademarks and trade names in which Cuban
entities have an interest.
- - Directs the Treasury Secretary to amend the CACR to establish a general
license to allow U.S. nationals to make the payments necessary to register their
trademarks and trade names as domain names in the .cu Internet domain and to
investigate and pursue removal of infringing .cu domain names.
- - Restores the jurisdiction of the federal courts to enforce rights to
foreign-origin trademarks based upon intellectual property treaties and laws in
order to return to the status quo prior to the adoption of Section 211, a
special interest provision that allows for discriminatory treatment of certain
Cuban trademarks by prohibiting their renewal and by denying their holders
access to courts.
"Last year, the World Trade Organization ruled that Section 211
violates two basic principles of the TRIPs agreement: national treatment and
most-favored nation status. The WTO gave the U.S. Congress until June 30 to
become compliant with the treaty or face possible sanctions, fines or other
retaliatory actions. This bill provides a favorable solution for the U.S. to
comply with this ruling," said Reinsch.
"The sponsors of this legislation should be praised for their
comprehensive approach to protecting the 5,000 U.S. trademarks in Cuba and
restoring U.S. leadership on the issue of intellectual property rights
protections," said Reinsch.
The National Foreign Trade Council is a leading business organization
advocating an open, rules-based global trading system. Founded in 1914 by a
broad-based group of American companies, the NFTC now serves 350 member
companies through its offices in Washington and New York.
http://www.usnewswire.com/ | 
