The International Trade Administration and the International Trade Commission have each issued notices initiating automatic five-year Sunset Reviews on the above-listed antidumping and countervailing duty orders.
The Court of International Trade has dismissed the case, International Labor Rights Fund et. al v.U.S., regarding the use of forced child labor in cocoa imported from the Cote d'Ivoire due to lack of standing.
International trade in counterfeit and pirated products was worth as much as $200 billion in 2005 - not including potentially hundreds of billions of dollars more in digital products distributed online, said a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD). There isn’t a way to accurately measure the flow of illegal goods online and elsewhere, it said: The scope and effects of piracy are “of such significance that they compel strong and sustained action” from govts., business and consumers. It recommended increased enforcement and better cooperation between govts. and companies to craft effective policies.
Unable to beat RIAA suits on federal legal counterclaims, P2P defense lawyers are looking at state laws for ammunition, including on RIAA’s home turf of Cal. State laws on private investigator licensing are under consideration by multiple lawyers, including the defense in a freshly-dropped Ore. suit, and new counterclaims in a Fla. case allege RIAA liability under a Cal. extortion statute. Lawyers we spoke to said they were early in researching the statutes for use against the trade group, but saw a powerful deterrent against RIAA if used successfully.
Pursuant to the Offset Act1, also known as the Byrd Amendment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice in the Federal Register of its intent to distribute assessed antidumping or countervailing duties for Fiscal Year 2007. Written certifications to obtain a continued dumping and subsidy offset under a particular AD/CV order or finding must be received by July 30, 2007.
A federal grand jury indicted Rep. Jefferson (D-La.) on 16 counts including money laundering, obstruction of justice, bribery and racketeering for using his elected position to assemble telecom deals in Africa, the Justice Dept. said Mon. Jefferson led official delegations to Africa to tout telecom deals in Nigeria, Ghana and elsewhere, plus oil concessions in Equatorial Guinea and satellite transmission contracts in Botswana, Guinea and the Republic of Congo, the indictment said. “The schemes charged are complex, but the essence of this case is simple: Mr. Jefferson corruptly traded on his good office, and on the Congress where he served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, to enrich himself and his family through a pervasive pattern of fraud, bribery and corruption,” said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, Eastern District of Va. Jefferson sought and/or received “hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes” on behalf of business interests and relatives, the filing alleged. In July 2005, he met with a Nigerian at the official’s home in Potomac, Md., offering a bribe to get commitments from the govt.-controlled telecom service provider in Nigeria. A month later, Jefferson “secreted in his freezer $90,000 of the $100,000 in cash” a cooperating witness had provided to pay the Nigerian, the Justice Dept. said: “The cash was separated into $10,000 increments, wrapped in aluminum foil, and concealed inside various frozen food containers.” Jefferson faces a maximum of 235 years in prison if convicted on all counts, Justice said.
In October 2000, the U.S. enacted Public Law 106-286 entitled Normal Trade Relations for the People's Republic of China which, among other things, codified into U.S. law the application of the World Trade Organization's product-specific safeguard for imports from China.
Ohio U. should do some research on RIAA tactics -- and court rebukes to the trade group -- before handing over data to identify students in file-sharing lawsuits, defense lawyer Joseph Hazelbaker told the university in a Wed. letter. The school, a major target of RIAA pre-suit settlement offers, drew House Judiciary and Education committees’ attention (WID May 3 p9). It said recently that campus P2P sharing had ended, thanks to its new policy of cutting Internet access to computers found using common P2P applications (WID May 17 8). RIAA recently filed 2 complaints against John Doe defendants traced to Ohio U. dorm networks, in one case serving an ex parte subpoena to the school, according to Hazelbaker, who said he represents defendants in at least one of those cases. RIAA may not have authority to issue one complaint against multiple John Does accused of “separate and distinct acts,” due to a 2004 U.S. Dist. Court, Austin, Tex., order against recording industry use of that practice, he said. RIAA’s subpoena may be premature, lacks backup evidence and hasn’t been brought to the attention of U.S. Dist. Court, Columbus, the local court, Hazelbaker said. The Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act exception for “lawfully issued” subpoenas “should not be assumed to apply in this instance.” Ohio U. should fight the subpoena before “compromising student private information,” he said, not “simply act as an open conduit for the special interest RIAA.” Hazelbaker warned the school will “ultimately be responsible should confidential information be prematurely and/or improperly disclosed.” RIAA couldn’t be reached to comment on the Austin decision’s germaneness to its litigation strategy.
The U.S. Supreme Court Mon. ruled in favor of Verizon in an antitrust suit with implications not only for the Bells but for all industries (CD Nov 28 p1). The class action filing by William Twombly and Lawrence Marcus charged the Bells with “acting in parallel” to curb competition by not competing in one another’s territories and resisting CLEC entry in their own markets. Justice John Stevens dissented; Justice Ruth Ginsburg joined in part of his dissenting opinion.
Alongside familiar pirate haunts Russia and China, Canada sticks out as a Western nation lacking basic copyright protections for the Internet economy, said Congress members and copyright industry chiefs. Besides those countries, the International Anti-Piracy Caucus’s 2007 watch list, released Thurs., includes Mexico and Malaysia. Russia is getting steadily worse on intellectual property rights (IPR), but in some ways China is cutting piracy, the Caucus said. It chided Canada as a country that hasn’t gotten the brink of effective IPR protection. The watch list closely tracks the U.S. Trade Representative’s larger Special 301 list (WID May 1 p3), echoing its focus on Russia and China.