The International Trade Administration has issued the final results of its antidumping duty administrative review of purified carboxymethylcellulose from the Netherlands (A-421-811). The period of review is July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn abandoned a proxy fight for control of independent filmed entertainment studio Lionsgate Monday on the eve of the company’s annual meeting. But he seemed to leave the door open for another bid. Lionsgate shares closed 4.7 percent lower at $7.09 in Monday trading.
As it rolls out new or revised Energy Star specifications, the EPA will look for opportunities to address lifecycle issues of Energy Star products, an agency official told us. A top-level review of Energy Star products is under way and “one thing we are working on is to flag products that have significant greenhouse gas emissions outside of the use phase, associated either with manufacturing, transport” or disposal, said Katharine Kaplan, Energy Star product manager. A first draft of the revised Energy Star specification for battery chargers released last week seeks to deal with the products’ disposal and recycling issues.
EBay is generally not liable for trademark infringements its users commit, European Court of Justice Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen said Thursday in a non-binding opinion. The case involves claims by L'Oréal that the auction site’s purchase of keywords corresponding to the company’s trademarks directs users to infringing goods, and that because of its involvement in pre-sale activities, sales and after-sales processes, eBay is closely involved in the intellectual property breaches, the opinion said. The U.K. High Court referred the matter to the ECJ for clarification of several questions of EU law, including what operators of Internet marketplaces should be expected to do to prevent trademark violations by users. Although eBay doesn’t itself sell L'Oréal goods online, it provides an alternative source for buying them that coexists with the trademark owner’s proprietary distribution network, the opinion said. By purchasing the trademarks as keywords and leading customers to its marketplace, eBay uses the marks in relation to goods sold by L'Oréal, it said. The use of disputed trademarks as keywords doesn’t necessarily mislead consumers about the origin of the products offered or jeopardize the mark, it said. If eBay merely displays the sign on a website, rather than in the sponsored link of a search engine, it’s simply allowing its clients to use signs identical to the trademark without using those signs itself, the opinion said. The potential harm to the mark owner from the listing of trademark-protected goods by eBay users can’t be attributed to the auction site, it said. Jääskinen discussed an earlier ECJ decision involving Google, in which the court said information service providers storing information at the request of clients are exempt from liability for the information if they're neutral in relation to the data they host. While eBay may not be neutral in this sense because it tells users how to draft ads and monitors the content of listings, that level of involvement shouldn’t result in the loss of the liability exemption, the opinion said. EBay is liable for content it communicates as an advertiser to a search engine, it said. The exemption doesn’t apply where an e-market operator has actual knowledge of illegal activity on the site and allows it to continue, the opinion said. EBay said that despite the complexity of the issues and the preliminary nature of the opinion, it’s “encouraged that the ECJ’s final judgment will reinforce European consumers’ freedom” to buy and sell authentic goods on the Internet. The opinion retains the possibility of prohibiting sales on eBay of testers and unpackaged products, and is balanced and “overall consistent” with L'Oréal’s stance, Bloomberg quoted that company as saying.
The bully pulpit is among the means that the FTC has to help make additional online privacy tools available to Internet users if industry doesn’t act on its own, FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz said in an interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators to be telecast Saturday. A recent preliminary report by the agency calling for “do not track” tools to be built into Web browsers is already influencing the industry, he said, pointing to a recent Microsoft announcement that such tools will be in the next version of its Internet Explorer Web browser. “I think what you're seeing is a very important step forward,” Leibowitz said. He said the FTC has been in talks with other technology companies, including browser makers, about introducing similar tools. “We're hoping that the advertising community will also support this."
CBP has posted its fiscal year 2010 Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (also known as the "Byrd Amendment") annual report. This report contains three sections:
The International Trade Administration has issued the final results of its antidumping duty administrative review stainless steel sheet and strip in coils (SSSSC) from Taiwan (A-583-831) for the period July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009.
On December 7, 2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held a summit on North American Competitiveness and the Global Supply Chain. At the Summit, participants from Capitol Hill, the administration, and the business community discussed the newly released preliminary results of an ongoing survey of hemispheric customs users, and concluded that security and trade facilitation are mutually supported goals that will lead to greater economic growth.
The International Trade Commission determined on December 3, 2010 that there is a reasonable indication that a U.S. industry is materially injured by reason of imports of multilayered wood flooring from China that are allegedly subsidized and sold in the U.S. at less than fair value. As a result, the Commerce Department will continue to conduct its countervailing and antidumping duty investigations on imports of this product from China, with its preliminary countervailing duty determination due on or about January 14, 2011, and its preliminary antidumping duty determination due on or about March 30, 2011.
The International Trade Administration frequently issues notices on antidumping and countervailing duty orders, investigations, etc. which Broker Power considers to be "minor” in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued, neither announce nor cause any changes to an order’s duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period, etc.