Microsoft's GitHub said it got a U.S. sanctions license to provide services to software developers in Iran. GitHub, which provides hosting for software development, convinced the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls that its use “advances human progress” and international communication, and improves free speech, the company said Tuesday. GitHub called the two-year process with OFAC “lengthy and intensive” and said it's “in the process” of rolling back “all restrictions on developers in Iran, and reinstating full access.” The company said it's working to secure similar licenses for developers in Crimea and Syria. OFAC didn’t comment Thursday.

The procedural stalemate in Section 301 lawsuits inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade is traceable to Chief Judge Timothy Stanceu and his staff “really looking at everything very carefully,” Grunfeld Desiderio's Ned Marshak told us Thursday. His firm has filed about 800 of the 3,700 complaints, including its first case Wednesday (in Pacer) establishing two-year timeliness based on its client’s 2019 import liquidation. The complaints seek to vacate the List 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings and get duties refunded. Most actions based timeliness within the two-year statute of limitations dating to when List 3 was in the Federal Register or when the tariffs took effect Sept. 24, 2018. Fewer based the two-year window dating to List 3 first payments. “At some point, the logjam is going to break,” said Marshak. As cases trickle in at about one a day, no case has been assigned to a judge, and there's no resolution about case management procedures, including which actions will be the designated test cases. Stanceu’s chambers didn’t respond to our questions. The CIT has “never seen anything like this before, and my sense is, they want to get it right,” said Marshak. “They want to look at all the complaints, because not all the complaints are the same.” Grunfeld Desiderio is advising clients “it’s not too late to file,” said Marshak. “There’s a fairly decent chance that you’re not totally out if you file now.” Establishing timeliness based on date of liquidation “is your last hope, and it’s not crazy,” he said. Marshak firmly believes “the litigation stays the same” under the Biden administration, he said. He doesn’t rule out plaintiffs approaching DOJ about possible settlements. The bigger question is what the new administration will do about Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, he said: “In my mind, this is not top priority. There are so many more important issues.”

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security renewed its temporary export control on certain artificial intelligence software, extending it a year from Jan. 6, said that day's Federal Register. BIS originally added the software to temporary controls under export administration regulations because it intended to propose it for multilateral control for the 2020 Wassenaar Arrangement. But Wassenaar’s annual plenary wasn't held last year due to COVID-19. BIS said the extension helps the U.S. “continue its effort at the Wassenaar Arrangement in 2021.”

The New York Stock Exchange dropped plans to delist China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom (see 2101040052). The NYSE on Monday cited “further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities in connection with Office of Foreign Assets Control.” The stature of the U.S. as "an international financial hub hinges on global companies and investors trusting the inclusiveness and certainty of its rules and mechanisms," said a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Tuesday.

China declined comment Tuesday on media reports it may require U.S. companies doing business in China to disclose links to the U.S. military, in retaliation for Trump administration sanctions against Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. for their allegedly close ties to the Chinese military (see 2012180026). China firmly opposes the administration’s “malicious slanders” and “suppression” of Chinese companies on national security grounds, said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Tuesday. The Chinese government “will not sit back when its legitimate interests are trampled upon by the U.S. side so willfully,” she said.

The New York Stock Exchange has started proceedings to delist shares of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom. The three are no longer suitable for listing because of an order by President Donald Trump, which prohibits any transactions in securities "designed to provide investment exposure to such securities, of any Communist Chinese military company, by any United States person,” said an NYSE statement The delisting will have limited effect, said a China Securities Regulatory Commission spokesperson Sunday: “The size of their [American depositary receipt] listings remains small, less than 2.2% in their respective total equity shares.”

A case on the classification of printed circuit board assemblies used in AV equipment will go to trial after the U.S. Court of International Trade said it couldn't determine whether PCBAs imported by Plexus are used mainly for duty-bearing TVs or for other devices that are duty-free. Customs and Border Protection classified the PCBAs in TV-related subheadings 8529.90.13 and 8529.90.83 dutiable at 2.9%. Plexus protested, arguing they should have been classified in the duty-free 8517.70.00 subheading for parts. Under U.S. trade law, PCBAs are classified with the hardware in which they are mainly used. The court was unable to determine the PCBAs' main use and ordered the case to trial. It ordered Plexus and the government to propose a schedule for going to trial, including a start date no later than March 1.

Two dozen trade associations and business groups, including CTA and the National Retail Federation, urged the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to delay Tuesday’s Section 301 investigative hearing into Vietnam’s alleged currency manipulation practices to allow time to digest the Treasury Department’s Dec. 16 report blasting Vietnam’s trade behavior. The report is “of critical importance” to the Section 301 investigation but was released six days after the deadline for comments and requests to appear at the hearing, wrote the groups Friday. Treasury’s finding “could have substantial impact on the ongoing investigation,” they said. “Interested parties should be given an opportunity to comment on this report” before USTR finishes its investigation, they said: Stakeholders are “entitled to a meaningful opportunity to be heard” under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution. The Retail Industry Leaders Association, Semiconductor Industry Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce also signed the letter. Treasury’s report said Vietnam was one of several “major U.S. trading partners” that “intervened in the foreign exchange market in a sustained, asymmetric manner.” Vietnam also met and exceeded Treasury’s “objective criteria” for identifying “potentially unfair currency practices or excessive external imbalances, which could weigh on U.S. growth or harm U.S. workers and firms,” said the report. If any of the groups that wrote seeking the hearing delay got an answer from USTR, "I have not heard about it yet," emailed CTA Vice President-International Trade Sage Chandler Wednesday. USTR didn’t respond to questions.

The U.S. Court of International Trade granted DOJ’s second motion requesting leave to file an updated “schedule of cases” related to the first-filed HMTX Industries-Jasco Products Section 301 complaint, said Chief Judge Timothy Stanceu's order (in Pacer) Tuesday in docket 1:20-cv-00177. The motion “concerns overall case management of an unusually large volume of cases, none of which have yet been assigned to an individual Judge,” said DOJ's Tuesday motion. Roughly 3,700 cases have inundated the court, all seeking to vacate the Lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings on Chinese imports and refund the duties. The plaintiffs who responded to DOJ’s Sept. 23 motion (in Pacer) for case management procedures have “generally agreed” the cases other than the HMTX-Jasco action “should be stayed while a test-case procedure is implemented,” said DOJ. The revised schedule of pending cases (in Pacer) attached to the motion spans 194 pages and includes actions filed through Monday. Cases have continued trickling, at least one a day. All assert timeliness under the court’s two-year statute of limitations, dating to first payment of the List 3 tariffs upon the entry of goods in 2018.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security added more than 60 companies, including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., China’s largest chipmaker, to the entity list “to protect U.S. national security,” said BIS Friday. This stems from China’s “military-civil fusion doctrine” and evidence of collaboration between SMIC and “entities of concern in the Chinese military industrial complex,” it said. SMIC denied the allegations, saying it supplies products and services only for “civilian end users” (see 2011120011). The company didn't comment Friday. The new restriction “limits SMIC's ability to acquire certain U.S. technology by requiring U.S. exporters to apply for a license to sell to the company,” said BIS. “Items uniquely required to produce semiconductors at advanced technology nodes -- 10 nanometers or below -- will be subject to a presumption of denial.” China urges the U.S. “to stop its wrong behavior of oppression of foreign companies,” said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Friday in anticipation of the BIS action. “China will continue to take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.”