The International Trade Administration is initiating and issuing preliminary results of an antidumping duty changed circumstances review of stainless steel bar from the United Kingdom to determine whether partial revocation of the AD duty order is warranted with respect to SAF 2507 grade stainless steel bar.
The International Trade Administration has issued its preliminary results of the following countervailing duty administrative reviews:
Rural Cellular shareholders approved Verizon Wireless’s $2.67 billion agreement to acquire Rural, Rural said. About 88 percent endorsed the deal, according to preliminary results. The merger, announced July 30 and expected to close first half 2008, needs regulatory approval.
The International Trade Administration has issued its preliminary results of the following antidumping and countervailing duty administrative reviews:
The International Trade Administration has issued preliminary results of an antidumping duty changed circumstances review of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film, sheet, and strip from Korea and preliminary reinstatement of Kolon Industries, Inc. in the AD duty order.
New Games: Activision’s new Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was listed among the 15 toys that Toys “R” Us expects to be holiday best sellers. It was the list’s lone videogame, along with interactive/electronic items, including LeapFrog’s ClickStart My First Computer, Jakks Pacific’s EyeClops and Playskool’s Made for Me MP3 music player… Electronic Arts (EA) launched FIFA Online 2 in Asia. Seoul- based co-developer Neowiz Games will operate the title in South Korea. The first FIFA Online “has quickly become the number one online sports game in Korea with over five million registered subscribers,” EA said. The No. 1 U.S. third-party publisher “identified Asia as a strategic priority for investment and growth,” an EA spokesman said… New Midway Games titles BlackSite: Area 51 and Stranglehold are the latest to use Unreal Engine 3.0 (UE3). The publisher picked the engine for the games because “it allowed artists to get up to speed and start creating content almost right out of the gate,” Chief Technology Officer Michael Weilbacher told Consumer Electronics Daily. UE3 has a strong set of scripting and content creation tools, which he said let Midway artists “get started right away while our programmers and technologists started working on the code” for the games. The publisher’s custom codebase “Midway Core,” built on and around the UE3 foundation, “now has two years of optimizations and custom extensions added,” he said. Midway has “put an enormous amount of engineering into getting UE3 working well on the PlayStation 3, which in some ways is a more challenging platform than the Xbox 360,” he said. “At this point, Midway Core is made up of about 60 percent original UE3 code and about 40 percent custom Midway code.” Other third-party publishers have called PS3 more complex to develop games for than Xbox 360. Also using UE3 is Unreal Tournament 3, for which Midway last week announced a limited edition collector’s edition. It will ship in November at $59.95 in the U.S. with bonus DVD extras including a history of the game and behind-the-scenes looks at the series’ latest entry. It also will ship in Europe, South Africa, Australia and “most other territories,” Midway said… Preliminary retail channel checks by Stern, Agee & Leach analyst Arvind Bhatia “indicate the initial sellthrough rate” for THQ’s new game Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights for Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and PS2 is “tracking inline with expectations” but not “exceeding” them. The analyst had hoped the game would beat expectations to “make up for some of the softness experienced” in Stuntman, another recent THQ release, he said. But “very few stores we checked with were sold out and most indicated the sellthrough rate was inline,” he said. The new Juiced is expected to ship for PS3 and PSP Oct. 8 also… Among the first games from The Games Company’s new Green Kangaroo casual and kids games label will be point-and- click adventure Tell - the Game of the Movie, shipping Nov. 2. The company started Green Kangaroo to “draw a distinct line between casual games and core games for the end consumer,” said CEO Markus Malti. The casual games will have “reasonable prices,” he said, with full-price titles for core gamers released under the company’s TGC label… Scholastic Media shipped two Nintendo DS games: Animal Genius and I Spy Fun House at $29.99 each in the U.S… Sony Computer Entertainment America shipped PSP and PS2 versions of NBA 08 at $39.99 each, plus a PS3 version in 1080p (CED Sept 27 p14).
The International Trade Administration has issued a notice stating that it is postponing the final antidumping duty determination on sodium hexametaphosphate from China by 60 days to January 22, 2008.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau again went after Comcast’s CN8 network for airing video news releases without disclosing their sources. The Bureau issued a $16,000 notice of apparent liability against Comcast for “willfully and repeatedly” violating sponsorship identification rules. The company has 30 days to pay or contest the fine. Comcast has questioned FCC authority to levy such fines (CD Sept 26 p15). “The FCC’s preliminary findings are legally unfounded and factually distorted,” a Comcast spokeswoman said. “CN8 received no payment or benefit by using the material, which came from a legitimate broadcast media subscription service. We expect that our judgements will ultimately be vindicated.”
The International Trade Administration has issued its final results of the antidumping duty new shipper reviews of fresh garlic from China for the period of November 1, 2005 through April 30, 2006.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an ABI administrative message which provides an update on the new Automated Commercial Environment reporting tool Account Revenue (AR) reports. CBP states that it is aware that there is some confusion in running the new reporting tool and it is making every effort possible to simplify the process. CBP states that it hopes that the next time a user runs its preliminary Periodic Monthly Statements (PMS), the data will display better than in the old reporting tool.