Advertiser plaintiffs in a long-running antitrust lawsuit against media companies moved the court to appoint JND Legal Administration as the settlement administrator to provide notice and settlements to members of proposed settlement classes and to approve the means and form of notice, said their motion (docket 1:18-cv-06785) Friday in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. They also seek to order defendants Tegna, Gray Media Group and Meredith to produce customer contact information. Defendants CBS, Fox, the Cox Entities and data tracking firm ShareBuilders agreed last month (see 2305300073) to a $48 million settlement with advertisers in the long-running antitrust lawsuit stemming from a 2018 DOJ investigation of ad price collusion that arose during inquiries into the failed Sinclair/Tribune deal. Under the settlement, Cox, CBS and Fox agreed to provide information and testimony that could help the advertisers as the litigation continues against broadcasters that aren’t part of the settlement, including Nexstar, Sinclair and Gray. On May 26, plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary approval of the settlements in which plaintiffs sought certification of four settlement classes, one for each settling defendant. Plaintiffs now seek approval of the proposed notice program, expected to be directed to all putative members of the settlement classes, that will be supplemented by a media campaign, the filing said. The notice documents will contain “easy-to-read” settlement summaries and instructions on how to get more information, said the motion. Tegna, Raycom and Meredith have declined to produce customer contact information necessary to facilitate the notice program, the motion said. Their primary objection was that it was premature prior to plaintiffs’ seeking approval of settlements. With that objection now “mooted... there is no reason to delay entering an order compelling the production of this necessary information.”
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices June 13 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register June 13 on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
Georgia tagged nearly $15 million for broadband expansion in a second round of Capital Projects Fund grants, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said Monday. The preliminary grant awards are meant to connect more than 3,500 locations, the governor’s office said. Windstream received more than $8.5 million combined for projects in three counties. Georgia city Colquitt got the rest, winning nearly $6.3 million for a project in Miller County.
Trailer wheels manufactured by Asia Wheel in Thailand were incorrectly ruled to be within the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain steel wheels from China, U.S. importers Trailstar and TexTrail said in a pair of June 9 complaints at the Court of International Trade. Both complaints asked the court to find Commerce's final scope ruling illegal and to remand the ruling to the department (Trailstar v. U.S., CIT # 23-00097, and Textrail v. U.S., CIT # 23-00099).
The board of directors of the U.S. Export-Import Bank approved a preliminary commitment to lend $300 million to the government of Costa Rica’s Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad & Subsidiaries for equipment and services from trusted vendors to deploy a 5G network, the bank said Friday. Ex-Im "financing can play a key role in ensuring 5G telecommunications infrastructure is built and supported by trusted vendors,” said President and Chair Reta Jo Lewis.
The Commerce Department has published the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand (A-549-502). Commerce calculated an AD rate of 0.71% for the only company under review, Thai Premium Pipe Co. Ltd. In these final results, Commerce will set importer-specific rates for subject merchandise from Thai Premium Pipe entered during the period March 1, 2021, through Feb. 28, 2022. The new 0.71% AD cash deposit rate for Thai Premium Pipe and its affiliates took effect June 9, the date these final results were published in the Federal Register.
The Commerce Department has published the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from South Korea (A-580-809). These final results will be used to set final assessments of antidumping duties on importers for subject merchandise entered Nov. 1, 2020, through Oct. 31, 2021.
The Commerce Department published the final results of its countervailing duty administrative review on chlorinated isocyanurates from China (C-570-991). The agency calculated new CV duty cash deposit rates for the Chinese producers and exporters listed below. These final results will be used to set final assessments of CVD on importers for entries Jan. 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2020.
The Court of International Trade granted the Commerce Department's request for a remand to reconsider its calculations of constructed value, CV profit cap and constructed export price profit for countervailing duty respondent Hyundai Steel in the 2019-20 review of the CVD order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea. Hyundai claimed that Commerce's use of exporter SeAH Steel Corp.'s third-country sales data for calculating these figures unreasonably used data that failed to represent Hyundai's actual experience.