“Any reasonable person” would conclude that five Intelsat defendants, including former Chairman David McGlade and Intelsat’s two largest shareholders, engaged in unlawful insider trading while in possession of materially nonpublic information, alleged lead plaintiff Walleye Group in its opening brief Friday (docket 23-15822) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Walleye is seeking reversal of the district court’s April 26 dismissal of its second amended complaint. Walleye alleges the defendants sold more than $245 million of Intelsat stock the evening after they learned the FCC was going to reject Intelsat's “bet-the-company plan” for a private auction of satellite spectrum, which Intelsat previously believed the FCC would support (see 2305310058). Intelsat’s shares “collapsed” by 77% when the public found out about the FCC’s rejection, said Walleye’s opening brief. The defendants thereby avoided over $185 million in losses by selling their Intelsat stock in a late-evening fire sale, it said. As a result of the doomed deal, Intelsat filed for bankruptcy, it said. The case “involves one issue, and one issue alone” -- whether Walleye adequately alleged the scienter element of its insider trading claims, the brief said. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California “not only incorrectly weighed the collective inferences of scienter present here, but also improperly weighed such inferences through a clouded lens,” it said.
Two claims of substitution drawback for imports of petroleum derivatives already had been deemed liquidated when CBP later "attempted" liquidation,importer Performance Additives, LLC said in an Aug. 31 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Performance Additives is seeking repayment of over $1.4 million in Section 301 duties it argues were improperly levied (Performance Additives v. U.S., CIT # 22-00044).
Four witnesses asked Congress to pass Level the Playing Field Act 2.0, a proposal that would change trade remedy laws in favor of domestic manufacturers, at a House hearing called the "Chinese Communist Party Threat to American Manufacturing."
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. "consistently fails to consider" the filing of a collection action in the Court of International Trade as a valid "'demand' for liquidated duties," surety firm Aegis Security Insurance Co. told the trade court in an Aug. 30 reply brief. Given this failure, the government is illegally trying to limit the concept of "demand" to the issuance of a bill in its attempt to get Aegis to pay a customs bond on entries that liquidated in 2006, the brief said (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT # 20-03628).
Importer Cambridge Isotope Laboratories told the Court of International Trade in an Aug. 30 letter as part of its customs suit that it filed a request for a changed circumstances review with the Commerce Department. In the customs case, Cambridge Isotopes said an enriched ammonium sulfate isotope was incorrectly placed within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on ammonium sulfate from China (see 2304280022). The changed circumstances review concerns the enriched 15N ammonium sulfate isotope (Cambridge Isotope Laboratories v. United States, CIT # 23-00080).
The Organization of Professional Aviculturists and the Lineolated Parakeet Society told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that the Fish and Wildlife Service illegally rejected their petitions to add two avian species to the list of birds that can be imported to the U.S. The avian advocacy groups argued that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida erroneously dismissed their case by ruling that the plain language of the Wild Exotic Bird Conservation Act does not require species to be listed by the specific countries of origin from which they can be imported (Organization of Professional Aviculturists v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 11th Cir. # 23-11984).
Four witnesses asked Congress to pass Level the Playing Field Act 2.0, a proposal that would change trade remedy laws in favor of domestic manufacturers, at a House hearing called the "Chinese Communist Party Threat to American Manufacturing."
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. backed the Commerce Department's valuation of exporter Jilin Bright Future Chemical's inputs of bituminous coal and coal tar as part of the 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on activated carbon from China. Filing its response to Jilin Bright's claims (see 2306080054) at the Court of International Trade, the government argued that the exporter failed to dispute Commerce's formula for converting useful heat value (UHV) to gross calorific value (GCV) as part of the BT coal valuation at the administrative level. As a result, Jilin Bright did not exhaust its administrative remedies, the brief said (Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00336).