The U.S. Department of Commerce has accused the Kintetsu World Express Inc., of Houston, Texas, of 26 violations of federal laws prohibiting support for the Arab boycott of Israel by discriminating against American companies doing business with Israel or managed by American Jews.
Kintetsu is an air freight forwarder and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kintetsu World Express Inc., of Tokyo. A copy of the charges was made available to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Specifically, the company is alleged to have supplied “negative statements of origin” in making 19 shipments of U.S. manufactured goods, principally oil-drilling equipment, from Houston to Egypt and Kuwait and also to have failed to report to the Department seven boycott requests that it is required by law to make known.
In connection with these shipments, the Department said, Kintetsu certified to recipients in Egypt and Kuwait that the goods originated in the U.S. and not Israel, nor did the row materials used in their manufacture originate in Israel.”
The charges were outlined in a letter to Gorolio, president of Kintetsu which has an office in Jamaica, N.Y., from Richard M. Seppa, head of the Department’s Office of anti-Boycott Compliance. Kintetsu is described by the Department as the first “intermediary” in the export process to have been charged and also the first to have been charged for failure to report. U.S. administrative sanctions against Kintetsu include a civil penalty up to $10,000 for each violation; revocation of export licenses, denial of export privileges, and exclusion from practice before Department agencies.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
