Two lawsuits targeting the online-video startup Aereo are meritless, Aereo said Thursday. Aereo, which is planning to start offering its services in New York City March 14, was named in two separate copyright suits brought by broadcasters and media networks. Aereo has said it plans to charge $12 a month for a live streaming and DVR service. Under Aereo’s model, each subscriber will rent his or her own antenna and DVR at Aereo’s facilities, and stream programming directly from that device to his or her own TV set, tablet or mobile device.
On February 29, 2012, the trade leadership in the House and Senate introduced identical legislation to change the law so that the International Trade Administration can continue to apply countervailing duties to non-market economies (NMEs) such as China and Vietnam beyond upcoming court and WTO deadlines. The House Ways and Means Committee states that this legislation will move soon, and that it was developed with the support of the Obama Administration.
The Foreign Trade Zones Board has issued a final rule, effective April 30, 20121, to comprehensively revise and update the Foreign Trade Zone regulations in 15 CFR Part 400. Key revisions in the final rule pertain to activities in and procedures for zones in which an imported component is combined with one or more other components to create a different finished product, and expedited access to FTZ benefits for U.S. manufacturers.
The International Trade Administration has initiated an administrative reviews for certain firms subject to antidumping or countervailing duty orders with January anniversary dates. The ITA intends to issue the final results of these reviews not later than January 31, 2013.
The Justice Department announced on February 23, 2012 that Albert “Jack” Stanley, a former chairman and chief executive officer of Kellogg, Brown & Root Inc. (KBR), was sentenced on February 23, 2012 to 30 months in prison for conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by participating in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts and for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud as part of a separate kickback scheme. Stanley has also been ordered to serve three years of supervised release following the prison term and to pay $10.8 million in restitution to KBR, the victim of the separate kickback scheme.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a proposed rule to make various changes to the in-bond regulations so that they are more logical and better track the in-bond process. The proposed rule would transform the in-bond process from a paper dependent entry process to an automated paperless process in ACE. It would also require additional information to be reported on the in-bond application, establish a 30-day transit time for all modes except pipelines, and require electronic permission from CBP for in-bond cargo diversion, among other changes. Comments on the proposed rule are due by April 23, 2012.
The Court of International Trade has ruled that Rack Room Shoes, SKIZ Imports LLC, and Forever 21, Inc., which had challenged the constitutionality of certain tariff provisions of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) on the grounds that the tariffs unconstitutionally discriminate by gender and age, did not plausibly demonstrate government intent to discriminate, dismissing the case with prejudice.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.
Online social networks can’t be forced to monitor users to prevent piracy, the European Court of Justice said in a major ruling Thursday. Requiring hosting providers to install a general filtering system would violate the rule that there be a fair balance between protecting copyright and the freedom to conduct business, safeguard personal data and receive information, the high court said. The decision should make EU bodies and national governments think twice about attempting to make private companies responsible for copyright breaches in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and upcoming revisions to the intellectual property rights enforcement directive, digital rights activists said.
The Court of International Trade has denied the amount of CBP’s 1592 penalty against a corporation for fraudulently introducing entries of primrose oil capsules into the U.S., which, at the time of import, could not be lawfully imported. CBP stated the $17.7 million penalty amount was set at double the entered value of the merchandise; however, the court concluded that CBP did not follow its regulations in arriving at this figure, and ordered CBP to arrange for a new appraisal.