A Minnesota District Court judge vacated a $630.4 million arbitration award against Western Digital, rejecting misappropriation of trade secret claims leveled against it by rival Seagate Technology, Western Digital said.

The Telecommunications Industry Association is "concerned about Brazilian regulator Anatel not accepting test data generated outside of Brazil, except in those cases where the equipment is too physically large and/or costly to transport," it said in comments filed with the U.S. Trade Representative on its Foreign Trade Barriers report.

CBP posted a fact sheet on deployed Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) capabilities as of October 2012. The following capabilities have been delivered in ACE in support of CBP, Participating Government Agencies (PGAs), and the trade community:

The Court of International Trade dismissed Celta Agencies’ challenge of liquidation instructions for its entries subject to the antidumping order on steel concrete reinforcing bars from Latvia (A-449-804). Celta said its entries of reinforcing bars should have been liquidated at the company-specific rate of the producer instead of the all others rate. CIT, however, said it had no subject matter jurisdiction under the 28 USC 1581(a) customs protest denial challenge provision, because Celta was in fact challenging International Trade Administration liquidation instructions, not an action by Customs. CIT said the challenge was correctly filed under the 28 USC 1581(i) residual jurisdiction provision, but the statute of limitations for its use, two years, had already expired.

The Court of International Trade denied without prejudice the government’s motion to amend its complaint in United States v. Active Frontier International because the government didn’t include the actual amended complaint in its motion. CIT had given the government a second chance in its Aug. 30 AFI ruling, where CBP attempted to recover penalties from AFI because of false country of origin markings. CIT said CBP didn’t demonstrate that the false statements were “material” for penalty purposes and denied the government’s penalty claim, but allowed CBP to amend its complaint to demonstrate materiality.

CBP is expanding its Importer Self-Assessment (ISA) program to allow importers that have gone through other stringent government reviews to take advantage of the program, according to an Oct. 5 Federal Register notice. The agency will now allow companies that have gone through a CBP Focused Assessment (FA) audit to take part in ISA without additional reviews. The change formalizes an informal and not widely known practice that CBP has had over the last couple of years, said an industry executive.

Challenges of CBP exclusions of imported merchandise should be heard by U.S. district courts, rather than the Court of International Trade, if the excluded merchandise is seized before the court challenge is filed, said CIT in dismissing PRP Trading’s objection to CBP’s exclusion of its merchandise. CBP originally excluded the merchandise because it suspected false country of origin markings. PRP Trading argued it could challenge the exclusion at CIT, but CIT said it had no jurisdiction because the merchandise was seized by CBP before PRP Trading filed suit, which means the correct forum for the case is a U.S. district court.

The International Trade Commission is asking for comments by about Oct. 10 on a patent complaint filed Sept. 26 on behalf of Speculative Product Design, which alleges violations of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the import into the U.S., the sale for import, and the sale within the U.S. after import of certain cases for portable electronic devices (D/N 2917). The ITC is asking for comments on any public interest issues that might affect ITC consideration, including whether the issuance of an exclusion order and/or cease and desist order would impact the public interest. The complaint names the following respondents:

The International Trade Administration’s proposed changes to the definition of factual information and time limits for its submission in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings would limit the ability of both foreign respondents and domestic interested parties “to provide accurate information and meaningful comment, and to correct errors,” said trade attorney Jeffrey Winton in comments on the ITA’s July 10 proposed rule. Comments were generally opposed to the proposal as it currently stands, particularly those by representatives of domestic industry.

CBP's ACEopedia for September provides an update to progress in ACE to date. The latest version added five new agencies planned for ACE interoperability, aimed at allowing a "single window" process that would ease cargo importation and release.