The U.S. and Russia agreed to a draft revision of the agreement suspending the International Trade Administration’s antidumping duty investigation on certain hot-rolled flat-rolled carbon quality steel products from Russia (A-821-809). The ITA had previously said it intended to terminate the 1999 suspension agreement, and resume the investigation, because it was no longer preventing price undercutting by Russian exporters. Interested parties are invited to comment on the revisions by Nov. 23. The ITA and the Russian Ministry of Economic Development must sign a final version of the agreement by Nov. 30, the ITA said.
The International Trade Administration issued the final results of the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from China (A-570-865). The ITA rescinded the review with respect to one company, Baosteel, because it did not export to the U.S. during the period of review, and assigned 15 other companes the China-wide rate because they did not certify that they were not government-run. The new rate is effective Nov. 21.
The International Trade Administration issued the final results of the administrative review of the countervailing duty order on certain pasta from Italy (A-475-819), which sets a CV cash deposit rate of 2.49 percent for Italian producer/exporter Molino e Pastificio Tomasello S.p.A. This rate is effective Nov. 21.
The International Trade Administration issued the final results of the administrative review of the countervailing duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Turkey (A-489-502), which sets de minimis1 CV cash deposit rate for two companies, Marsan2 and Bellini.3 These rates are effective Nov. 21, and will be implemented by CBP soon.
The U.S. District Court in San Francisco is inclined to approve the FTC’s $22.5 million settlement with Google over alleged privacy violations, Judge Susan Illston said during a hearing Friday, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Illston asked attorneys for Google and the agency whether the company would be allowed to use data improperly collected from users of Apple’s Safari browser. Google allegedly circumvented cookie controls in Safari (WID Aug 10 p1). “My preliminary view is to grant the request to approve the order,” and she will issue a ruling “soon,” Illston said. She disagreed with attorney Gary Reback, representing Google critic Consumer Watchdog, that the fine was too small in relation to Google’s nearly $10 billion profit in 2011, but was interested in his argument that the settlement doesn’t stop Google from using improperly collected data. FTC lawyer Adrienne Fowler told Illston the data are outdated and have “negligible value.” The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation said separately Friday the settlement showed the FTC was too focused on penalizing companies for actions that don’t result in “actual harm” to consumers. Companies “should not face punitive sanctions for actions that do not cause consumer harm and are taken in good faith,” said Senior Analyst Daniel Castro by email: The FTC instead should direct its “limited resources” toward “cases where users suffer real harm or companies intentionally tried to mislead users."
CBP is requesting comments by Jan. 22 for an existing information collection on unlading and CBP overtime request applications. CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection without a change to the burden hours or to the information collected. The notice ran in the Federal Register Nov. 20.
Mexico's Diario Oficial of Nov. 16, lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:
A joint letter by Greenpeace International and the International Trade Union Confederation on the World Conference on International Telecommunications is “misleading, inaccurate and grounded in conjecture,” said Paul Conneally, head of ITU’s communications division, in a blog post (http://bit.ly/UssiwU). The letter, sent to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said the two organizations “believe the Internet ... is at risk from an attempt by some governments to impose solely governmental control over this extraordinarily valuable global resource, which has until now benefitted from a unique system of multi-stakeholder direction.” The organizations also complained about a perceived lack of transparency, and that the conference will be held “behind closed doors” with only government officials “fully party” to the talks. The ITU has members from the private sector, Conneally said. The preliminary list of participants includes representatives of the private sector and civil society, he said. The list isn’t public. “There are no limitations whatsoever on the composition or size of delegations,” Conneally said. “Governments are encouraged to include both private sector and civil society representatives on their national delegations,” he said. The ITU secretary general met with the trade union and invited UNI Global Union, a group that represents trade unions, he said. The union “is the voice of 20 million service sector workers,” including the telecom industry, its website said.
A joint letter by Greenpeace International and the International Trade Union Confederation on the World Conference on International Telecommunications is “misleading, inaccurate and grounded in conjecture,” said Paul Conneally, head of ITU’s communications division, in a blog post (http://bit.ly/UssiwU). The letter, sent to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said the two organizations “believe the Internet ... is at risk from an attempt by some governments to impose solely governmental control over this extraordinarily valuable global resource, which has until now benefitted from a unique system of multi-stakeholder direction.” The organizations also complained about a perceived lack of transparency, and that the conference will be held “behind closed doors” with only government officials “fully party” to the talks. The ITU has members from the private sector, Conneally said. The preliminary list of participants includes representatives of the private sector and civil society, he said. The list isn’t public. “There are no limitations whatsoever on the composition or size of delegations,” Conneally said. “Governments are encouraged to include both private sector and civil society representatives on their national delegations,” he said. The ITU secretary general met with the trade union and invited UNI Global Union, a group that represents trade unions, he said. The union “is the voice of 20 million service sector workers,” including the telecom industry, its website said.
Yama Ribbons and Bows appealed a Sept. 14 Court of International Trade decision affirming a 1.56 percent countervailing duty rate in the investigation of certain narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge from China (C-570-953). Yama argued that it was affiliated with a Hong Kong company, and so the International Trade Administration should have used sales from the company based in Hong Kong to the U.S. to calculate its CV duty rate. Instead, the ITA used sales from Yama, which is based in China, to the Hong Kong company. When the ITA used sales from China to Hong Kong in its preliminary determination, Yama was assigned a de minimis CV duty rate. But the evidence showing Yama was affiliated with the Hong Kong company were only placed on the record of the companion antidumping duty investigation. CIT said the two investigations were separate proceedings, and Yama should have placed the evidence on the record of the CV investigation. The ITA would have violated its own regulations by placing the information on the CV investigation record on its own initiative, it said.