Haier America Trading provisionally accepted a settlement with the Consumer Product Safety Commission under which it will pay $850,000 as a result of knowingly importing defective electric blenders, the CPSC said in a Federal Register notice asking for comments. Haier denied the charges but agreed to the settlement. Comments are due by Oct. 4 to Comment 12-C0009, Office of the Secretary, Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East West Highway, Room 820, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4408. Further information: Belinda Bell, 301-504-7592.
Trade associations and companies asked that Chinese business-to-business e-retail platform Alibaba be added to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Notorious Markets List, in comments on the USTR’s out of cycle special 301 review. “Entrepreneurial U.S. manufacturers, such as Harmony, are heavily affected by the distribution of counterfeit products via Alibaba and Aliexpress,” said Hand & Nail Harmony, a U.S. manufacturer of nail polish. Harmony, the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), and the Business Software Association (BSA) all included Alibaba on their lists.
A federal appeals court for the second time in a month upheld an FCC fine (CD Aug 21 p14) and the government’s effort to collect it against an unlicensed radio station in Texas. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. District Court decision that a $10,000 forfeiture order against Raymond Frank for unauthorized transmission in the Austin area at 100.1 MHz wasn’t unreasonably high, and that he had to pay it. Frank “above all” argued before the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit “that the FCC lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate intrastate radio broadcasts and that Section 301(a) of the Communications Act only applies to targeted ‘point to point’ intrastate communications,” said an unpublished 5th Circuit order dated Sept. 7 and posted last week on an FCC website (http://xrl.us/bnpr8e). “His arguments are foreclosed by our recent decision in the related case, United States v. Stevens ... where we held that district courts do not have jurisdiction to review legal challenges to government actions in 47 U.S.C. Section 504(a) proceedings to enforce forfeiture orders issued by the FCC.” Frank, who represented himself in U.S. v. Frank, didn’t answer the phone at a number listed for him in 5th Circuit docket 11-50848. Judges Stephen Higginson, Carolyn King and Jerry Smith were listed in the Frank decision.
U.S. negotiators should emphasize quality over speed when working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) analyst Stephen Ezell said during a teleconference about its new report on the TPP (http://xrl.us/bnnig6). The report says U.S. TPP negotiators should work on decreasing market barriers and increasing intellectual property rights protections among TPP participants. “It’s more important to get the TPP done right than to get it done right away,” Ezell said during the teleconference, saying the terms of the TPP will be seen as a “gold standard” across the world and in the future.
U.S. negotiators should emphasize quality over speed when working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) analyst Stephen Ezell said during a teleconference about its new report on the TPP (http://xrl.us/bnnig6). The report says U.S. TPP negotiators should work on decreasing market barriers and increasing intellectual property rights protections among TPP participants. “It’s more important to get the TPP done right than to get it done right away,” Ezell said during the teleconference, saying the terms of the TPP will be seen as a “gold standard” across the world and in the future.
In a June 14 warning letter recently posted to its website, the Food and Drug Administration said Chinese drug manufacturer Shijiazhuang Pharma Group Zhongnuo Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.’s products may not be allowed entry into the U.S. until the company renews its registration. Zhongnuo had previously been notified of its lapsed registration in an FDA letter dated March 26, but the FDA said it continued to find imports of Zhongnuo’s drugs even though the company hadn’t registered in 2011 or 2012. FDA said Zhongnuo is required to submit registration information annually by electronic means for each foreign establishment it owns or operates that is engaged in the manufacture, preparation, propagation, compounding, or processing of a drug that is imported or offered for import into the U.S. Failure to register is a prohibited act under Section 301(p) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
The following individuals have been added to OFAC's SDN List:
CBP Seattle sent out a Trade Information Notice reminding the trade community of new instructions for CBP Forms 301 and 301A. Email documents@brokerpower.com for a copy of the information notice.
The Food and Drug Administration is amending its regulations to comply with statutory amendments to the device registration and listing provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), it said in a Federal Register notice. It said the change would facilitate FDA's collection of additional registration information from foreign establishments as required by the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act and update rules to improve the quality of registration and listing information available to FDA.
The Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a public notice saying Japan is free of foot-and-mouth disease, so importing whole cuts of boneless beef from Japan may resume. Other ruminant meat and meat byproducts, as well as fresh pork, live ruminants, and live swine, remain prohibited due to Japan's status for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, classical swine fever, and swine vesicular disease, it said. The action is effective Aug. 17.