An app developer’s May 17 complaint alleging Apple violations of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act by monopolizing the distribution of apps through the App Store was assigned Monday to U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in Oakland, the third judge to handle the case after the first two recused themselves. Thomas Reilly said he spent $150,000 developing Konverti, a currency exchange app for the remaining petty cash travelers have when returning home from foreign destinations. Konverti was approved and placed in the App Store in June 2017 “and abruptly removed weeks later without clear cause given,” said Reilly’s complaint. “Apple’s anti-competitive conduct forecloses all potential competitors from entering” the app distribution market, facing “no constraints” on its monopoly power, it said. Apple didn’t comment Monday.

An Illinois court denied Clearview AI’s motion to dismiss a privacy lawsuit alleging the company’s facial recognition technology violated people’s privacy. The American Civil Liberties Union and others said the company violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) (see 2005280032). “This case touches on matters of significant public interest,” Illinois Circuit Court in Cook County Judge Pamela McLean Meyerson wrote Friday. The complaint can’t be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds because Clearview targeted Illinois customers, the judge said. She disagreed with Clearview that BIPA doesn’t apply to face-prints. Clearview’s dormant Commerce Clause argument -- that BIPA can’t be applied because it would control the company’s conduct outside Illinois -- “would reward reckless disregard of the law in blind deference to technology,” she said. The judge disagreed that BIPA violates the First Amendment, saying BIPA restrictions on Clearview’s free speech “are no greater than what’s essential to further Illinois’ interest in protecting its citizens’ privacy and security.” The judge said Friday’s decision doesn’t mean the court found Clearview liable for violating BIPA but that the court has jurisdiction and the complaint “states a cause of action for which relief may be granted.” ACLU praised the ruling. “Without regulations like BIPA, companies like Clearview could end privacy as we know it,” said Vera Eidelman, staff attorney-ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “This ruling protects our clients’ rights, and sends a strong message to lawmakers across the country that they can protect privacy without running afoul of the First Amendment.” Clearview AI didn't comment by our deadline.

The FCC defended revised rules for over-the-air reception devices, approved by commissioners in January (see 2101070068), against a petition by Children’s Health Defense and four individuals asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn the rules. The order provides protections already afforded to OTARD devices to “hub and relay” antennas used for the distribution of broadband-only service to multiple customer locations. “The FCC explained” in the order “that the multi-purpose nature of modern antennas makes the exclusion obsolete and that its repeal will encourage the deployment of fixed wireless networks that provide high-speed Internet access and other services to consumers,” the agency said in a Tuesday brief in docket 21-1075 (in Pacer): Plaintiffs “see this modest update as a sea change.” Petitioners lack standing to bring the case, the FCC said. They “do not show that the FCC’s modest amendment substantially increases the risk of alleged harm from exposure to radiofrequency emissions when compared to the preexisting rule, or that the injuries to Children’s Health’s organizational interests can be attributed to the rule change,” the FCC said. The change “falls easily within the FCC’s broad authority to regulate radio communications,” the brief said. Oral argument hasn’t been scheduled. The court earlier declined to stay the order (see 2104010064).

Apple and Intel were the two heavy hitters joining the Section 301 litigation Friday, when two dozen total complaints were filed at the U.S. Court of International Trade to vacate the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese goods and get the duties refunded. It was the highest volume of complaints filed on a single day since early in the litigation that will be a year old on Sept. 10. Friday marked two years after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative published its Federal Register notice imposing List 4A. Court rules require plaintiffs to begin an action within two years “after the cause of action first accrues.” Intel “timely filed this action with respect to any entry of merchandise on which List 4A duties have been assessed, and any entry of merchandise on which List 3 duties were not definitively assessed before August 20, 2019,” said the chipmaker’s complaint, typifying the others that were filed Friday. Importers will likely argue alternatively in complaints yet to come that their two-year clocks started when List 4A took effect Sept. 1, 2019, or when they actually paid their first tariffs or their customs entries reached liquidation.

A Bellevue, Washington, man pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges he netted more than $1.5 million in profits from insider trading of Netflix stock, said DOJ. Junwoo Chon, 50, is one of four men charged in the scheme that allegedly involved two former Netflix software engineers illegally providing proprietary subscriber data in advance of Netflix’s quarterly earnings announcements, said DOJ. Chon is scheduled for sentencing Dec. 3 before U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle. Efforts to reach Chon’s attorneys for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

Internet industry groups urged a federal judge to pause district court proceedings on Florida’s social media law until the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on Florida's appeal of a preliminary injunction. U.S. District Court in Tallahassee Judge Robert Hinkle asked if the case should be stayed (see 2108050053). What the 11th Circuit decides “will go a long way towards resolving the merits of this case, thereby vastly reducing the need for further briefing or discovery and saving this Court from wading through the discovery disputes that have already emerged,” NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association answered Wednesday in case 4:21-cv-00220-RH-MAF. Florida disagreed. “This case presents very important issues concerning the scope of the government’s authority to regulate the content moderation decisions of social media platforms,” said counsel for Attorney General Ashley Moody (R). “There is an overwhelming public interest in resolving this case expeditiously -- before another election in which Plaintiffs’ members are able to manipulate public discourse by censoring their users.”

The U.S. Court of International Trade scheduled a status conference in the Section 301 litigation for 10 a.m. Sept. 1, in an order Wednesday. That's two days before Customs and Border Protection is required to create a repository for importers to request liquidation suspensions of customs entries from China with Lists 3 or 4A tariff exposure. The court has extended the deadline three times since ordering CBP to establish the repository in its July 6 preliminary injunction order (see 2108170027). The plaintiffs’ steering committee and DOJ negotiated agreements on some previously contested terms for setting up the repository, but are still far apart on others.

The U.S. Court of International Trade extended to Sept. 3 from this Friday the deadline for Customs and Border Protection to create a repository for importers to request suspending liquidations of customs entries from China with Section 301 Lists 3 or 4A tariff exposure, said an order signed Monday by Judges Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves. It’s the court's third deadline extension since Kelly and Choe-Groves ordered CBP to establish the repository in their July 6 preliminary injunction order. The judges also extended to Oct. 4 from Sept. 2 the PI order’s temporary restraint period when no customs entries can liquidate, with or without the repository. An Aug. 9 joint status report found the plaintiffs’ steering committee and DOJ reaching agreement on some previously contested terms for setting up the repository but still far apart on others.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit remanded to the FCC for further explanation its 2019 RF safety rules, which largely upheld the old rules, while making a few tweaks. Judges had appeared skeptical of the FCC’s defense in January argument in Environmental Health Trust v. FCC. “We grant the petitions in part and remand to the Commission to provide a reasoned explanation for its determination that its guidelines adequately protect against harmful effects of exposure to radiofrequency radiation unrelated to cancer,” said a Friday opinion by Judge Robert Wilkins, joined by Judge Patricia Millett, who both expressed skepticism in January. Judge Karen Henderson partially dissented. “It is important to emphasize how deferential our standard of review is here -- where, first, an agency’s decision to terminate a notice of inquiry without initiating a rulemaking occurred after the agency opened the inquiry on its own and, second, the inquiry involves a highly technical subject matter at the frontier of science,” she wrote. The FCC and CTIA didn’t immediately comment.

Monday’s the deadline for Section 301 plaintiffs and the government to deliver the U.S. Court of International Trade a joint status report on how the sides are progressing to resolve their disagreements over proposed rules to create a Customs and Border Protection repository for importers to request suspended liquidation of customs entries from China with Lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure. The court’s July 6 preliminary injunction order freezing the status of unliquidated entries instructed CBP to have the repository up and running by July 20 (see 2107060080), but two postponements amid all the disagreements pushed the deadline back a month. Chief Judge Mark Barnett used the court’s status conference last Monday to urge the sides to seek “middle ground” (see 2108010002). Monday also is the deadline for plaintiff attorneys in the roughly 3,800 Section 301 complaints to file amicus briefs supporting Akin Gump’s arguments for sample-case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products that the tariffs are unlawful and should be refunded with interest. With an estimated 300 lawyers or more representing the complaints of 6,500 individual importers, the court’s April 13 scheduling order had ground rules to try to keep the amicus filings from getting out of hand. Lawyers must limit each brief to 5,000 words, it said. “Any amicus brief must be limited to the claims raised” in the HMTX-Jasco sample case “and must not repeat arguments already made” by Akin Gump, it said. The scheduling order gave DOJ until Oct. 1 to respond to the briefs, and Akin Gump until Nov. 15 to counter. “The court does not anticipate extending these deadlines absent extraordinary circumstances, which may include an exceptionally large number of amicus briefs presenting distinct arguments,” it said.