The Commerce Department lawfully selected surrogate values, calculated rates, applied adverse facts, and correctly decided to deny a separate rate to exporter Trina during the eighth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China, the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing said in its Sept. 18 brief at the Court of International Trade (Jinko Solar Import and Export Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00219).
Though litigants “exaggerate,” it may “actually be true that the fate of the freedom of speech in America depends” on what the U.S. Supreme Court does with the preliminary injunction barring federal officials from coercing social media platforms to moderate their content, said the Children’s Health Defense and its founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They filed an amicus brief Wednesday (docket 23A243) in opposition to the government’s application for a full stay of the injunction pending the disposition of its appeal (see 2309140041).
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 20 upheld the Commerce Department's decision on remand to include importer SMA Surface's Twilight product within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China. Judge Gary Katzmann said that SMA Surfaces waived its challenge to the remand, which said the product doesn't qualify for the crushed glass surface product exclusion, by failing to present developed arguments in response to the remand decision.
Google and YouTube seek an earlier date for the hearing on their motion to dismiss a freedom of speech lawsuit brought by Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said their motion Monday (docket 3:23-cv-03880) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Google requests a hearing Nov. 7, the same date as the hearing on Kennedy’s motion for preliminary injunction to allow both motions to be heard on the same day, said the filing. The court had scheduled a hearing on the motion to dismiss Jan. 16. In the event the court grants Google’s motion to dismiss, it will render the preliminary injunction “moot,” it said. The defendant also asked to advance the deadline for filing its motion to dismiss by six days and to reset the opposition and reply deadlines accordingly, it said. Kennedy didn’t consent to the proposed stipulation but said he doesn’t plan to file a formal opposition, said Google’s motion. This month, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson for Northern California ordered the court’s Aug. 23 order denying Kennedy's application for a temporary restraining order to be converted into an order denying a preliminary injunction (see 2309130013). Kennedy's freedom of speech lawsuit alleges “the extraordinary steps the United States government has taken under the leadership of Joe Biden to silence people it does not want Americans to hear.”
The Commerce Department issued its final determination in the antidumping duty investigation on freight rail coupler systems from Mexico (A-201-857). Cash deposit rates set in this final determination take effect Sept. 21, the date the final determination is set to be published in the Federal Register.
Tennessee Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Stein moved the court to order TikTok to comply with the AG’s office request for information entered April 17, said his motion to compel Friday (docket 23-0298-1) in Chancery Court of Davidson County for the 20th district at Nashville. The office of Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti (R) asks the court to order TikTok to provide a corporate designee with knowledge of the relevant issues for a deposition and to produce the legal hold notices it circulated to employees in connection with the state’s investigation, said the motion. The state is investigating TikTok under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977 for alleged unfair and deceptive business acts and practices in connection with its social media platform used by consumers in Tennessee and elsewhere, said the motion. The state filed the motion to compel to learn the scope of relevant data that TikTok “may have destroyed” during its investigation, and it asked that the court compel TikTok to produce a witness who could provide insight on the matter. The parties resolved the motion to compel through an agreed order requiring TikTok to produce a witness for examination on topics related to its “destruction of evidence,” said Stein. TikTok has not provided a witness “sufficiently knowledgeable about this topic,” Stein said, saying the witness it did provide was “either unwilling or unable to answer questions on topics clearly identified” in the agreed-on order. The order also requires TikTok to produce documents about the examination, but the defendant refused to produce the complete litigation hold notices it circulated to employees in connection with the investigation “and has instead asserted privilege,” it said. TikTok's privilege claim is “baseless because there is sufficient evidence to support a preliminary finding of spoliation,” said the motion. The state also seeks an order requiring TikTok to pay its legal costs in the matter.
Montana’s statewide TikTok ban, SB-419, “is appropriately protecting its citizens’ privacy from TikTok and its troubling relationship with China,” said the Republican attorneys general of Virginia and 17 other states in an amici brief Monday (docket 9:23-cv-00061) in U.S. District Court for Montana in Missoula. The AGs oppose the plaintiffs’ consolidated motions for a preliminary injunction to block Montana AG Austin Knudsen (R) from enforcing SB-419 when it takes effect Jan. 1 (see 2309050003).
The facts of the case that sparked the preliminary injunction that bars officials from the White House, the Office of the Surgeon General, the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from coercing social media platforms to moderate their content show that the federal officials wielded “their influence and power to censor the speech of individuals” whose viewpoints they disfavored, said Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R).
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 20 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to find that importer SMA Surface's Twilight product does not qualify for the crushed glass surface products exclusion under the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China. Judge Gary Katzmann said SMA Surfaces waived its objections to this finding, which Commerce issued on remand, when the importer "did not brief any arguments specific to Commerce's analysis and explanation." Additionally, the judge said the remand results "adequately addressed" the importer's preliminary objections.
Monday's decision of U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman for Northern California granting NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) from enforcing the state’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AB-2273) (see 2309180063) “lets Big Tech off the hook, and gives them a free pass to continue profiting off harm to our kids,” emailed California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), co-sponsor of AB-2273, through a spokesperson Tuesday.