The Commerce Department has released the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on stainless steel flanges from India (A-533-877). These final results will be used to set final assessments of AD duties on importers for subject merchandise from 23 companies under review entered Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2021.
The Commerce Department on March 6 released a countervailing duty order on barium chloride from India (C-533-909). The order sets permanent countervailing duties, which will remain in place unless revoked by Commerce in a sunset or changed circumstances review. Commerce will begin conducting annual administrative reviews, if requested, to determine final assessments of CVD on importers and make changes to cash deposit rates.
The Court of International Trade on March 3 granted two plaintiff-intervenors' motion for a preliminary injunction stopping liquidation for their entries, rejecting government arguments that the injunction would have impermissibly expanded the issues in the case. Citing past CIT judgments, Judge Mark Barnett held that the enlargement concept is only reserved for cases where an intervenor adds new legal claims to those already before the court.
Helix Telecom wrongfully terminated phone numbers of a Michigan insurance company, alleged a complaint Tuesday (docket 2:23-cv-10499) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Detroit. The Wyoming-based telecom provider has not secured an FCC license to conduct telecommunications services in Michigan, said the complaint. Plaintiff NBT Associates, which manages business operations of Allegiance Insurance in Kent County, Michigan, has had four phone numbers associated with its business for about 20 years and has been a customer of Helix since February 2017. Two of the numbers being serviced by Helix hadn't functioned for several months, and after plaintiffs contacted the telecom provider, it restored the numbers, said the complaint. After Helix restored the lines, plaintiffs switched service to another service provider. The plaintiff is claiming a property right to the telephone numbers. In January, plaintiffs discovered that phones for certain accounts weren’t working properly for people calling from outside the Helix system, who heard a busy signal with no call forwarding, the complaint said. Helix claimed plaintiffs violated its terms of service by porting numbers to another provider and refused to allow the numbers to be ported to a new carrier, the complaint said. Plaintiffs’ underwriters contacted the company threatening to sever their insurance agreements because Helix canceled its telephone numbers, “and the underwriter and customers are unable to contact Plaintiffs,” the complaint said. The lawsuit alleges breach of contract and tortious interference with contractor relationships and business expectancy. Plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction restraining Helix from terminating their phone numbers and an order that it immediately port or release them to plaintiffs’ new telecom provider.
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register March 3 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):
The Commerce Department has released the preliminary results of a countervailing duty administrative review of truck and bus tires from China (C-570-041). This review covers subject merchandise from the exporters under review entered during the period Jan. 1, 2021, through Dec. 31, 2021.
The Commerce Department has published the preliminary results of its countervailing duty administrative review on cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from South Korea (C-580-837). Commerce will assess CV duties on importers at the rates determined in the final results of this review for subject merchandise entered during the period Jan. 1, 2021, through Dec. 31, 2021.
The Commerce Department is amending the final results of an antidumping duty administrative review on corrosion-resistant steel products from Taiwan (A-583-856) to correct ministerial errors in the calculation method for the dumping margins assigned to Prosperity Tieh Enterprise, Co., Ltd. and Yieh Phui Enterprise Co., Ltd. In the final results of the AD review (see 2302020055), covering the period July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021, Commerce assigned Prosperity a 3.64% dumping margin and Yieh Phui, 2.88%. With the ministerial errors corrected, the rates changed to 3.74% for Prosperity and 4.89% for Yieh Phui. This meant the rate for the non-individually examined company, Sheng Yu Steel Co., Ltd., also changed as an average rate. It is now 4.14%.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices March 3 on AD/CVD proceedings:
However “well-intentioned” it was for protecting children online, California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (AADC) violates the First Amendment by “impermissibly interfering with editorial discretion” and “chilling speech,” said Chamber of Progress, IP Justice and LGBT Tech Institute in an amicus brief Wednesday (docket 5:22-cv-08861) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose. The groups support NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction (see 2212140063) “to prevent the destruction of vibrant and diverse speech communities that would follow if the AADC (AB-2273) is enforced in accordance with its terms” if the age-appropriate social media design statute takes effect as scheduled in July 2024, said their brief. The nonprofits “encourage service providers to implement features that help keep kids safe online,” they said. But the AADC “imperils healthy and safe online communities by restricting and penalizing online providers’ exercise of their First Amendment rights to moderate content on their platforms,” they said. Laws like the AADC that seek to regulate online content moderation “are concerning to amici because the parties that amici advise share the core principle of promoting healthy online communities, which require content moderation,” said their brief. The groups oppose the AADC’s requirement that online services, “subject to prior restraint and under pain of financial penalties, vet staggering quantities of content according to vague and overbroad criteria to try to make decisions best left to parents or guardians regarding minors’ online experiences,” they said.