The FCC "will stay in touch" with the post-merger Paramount and track its compliance with conditions the agency placed on Skydance Media's acquisition of Paramount Global, Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday. Skydance Media closed on Paramount Global on Thursday, as expected (see 2507280007).
VoIP-Pal's antitrust complaint is full of "prolix, repetitive, and at points incoherent allegations" and is "a last-ditch effort by a failing company to avoid the inevitable," defendants AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon told a federal court in a motion to dismiss the case Friday. VoIP-Pal is suing the three carriers in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that they're using their market dominance to deliberately withhold unbundled voice-over-Wi-Fi calling and texting from consumers (see 2410300004). The carriers' motion to dismiss (docket 1:24-cv-03051) said that since VoIP-Pal has suffered multiple court defeats in patent-infringement lawsuits, it's using its complaint as a different way of monetizing its patents. VoIP-Pal's offer to settle if one of the Big Three would buy it for $8.75 billion "lays bare what this case is really about," the carriers said. They added that VoIP-Pal lacks antitrust standing and that its complaint fails to allege that any defendant engaged in racketeering activity or that racketeering activity caused VoIP-Pal injury.
The Commerce Department is announcing the opportunity to request administrative reviews by Sept. 2 for producers and exporters subject to 46 antidumping duty orders and 16 countervailing duty orders with August anniversary dates.
The Commerce Department has published the preliminary results of its antidumping and countervailing duty administrative reviews on certain new pneumatic off-the-road tires from India (A-533-869/C-533-870). In the final results of these reviews, Commerce will set AD assessment rates for subject merchandise for the companies under review entered March 1, 2023, through Feb. 29, 2024, and CVD assessment rates for entries Jan. 1, 2023, through Dec. 31, 2023.
The Commerce Department failed to correct for respondent Dongkuk S&C's conversion costs and improperly relied on Dongkuk's information from a past antidumping duty review as the basis for constructed value ratios, petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition argued in a July 9 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The petitioner brought the suit to contest the 2022-23 review of the AD order on utility scale wind towers from South Korea (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. United States, CIT # 25-00104).
The Commerce Department began administrative reviews for certain firms subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders with May anniversary dates. Producers and exporters subject to any of these administrative reviews on China or Vietnam must submit their separate rate certifications or applications by July 9 to avoid being assigned high China-wide or Vietnam-wide rates.
The Commerce Department issued its final determination in its countervailing duty investigation on low speed personal transportation vehicles from China (C-570-177). Suspension of liquidation is currently not in effect for entries on or after April 5, 2025, and Commerce will require cash deposits of estimated CVD on future entries only if it issues a CVD order.
Expect more litigation from content companies targeting generative AI platforms over their use of images and video, both as inputs and outputs, copyright and intellectual property experts told us. Earlier this month, Disney and Universal sued AI platform Midjourney, alleging that the company uses the studios' intellectual property in its training data and the images that its platform produces (see 2506110043).
The Commerce Department issued its final determinations in its countervailing duty investigations on brake drums from China (C-570-175) and Turkey (C-489-854), after finding countervailable subsidization of producers and exporters in the two countries in the preliminary determinations of its CVD investigations.
The Commerce Department made final affirmative antidumping duty determinations that imports of brake drums from China (A-570-174) and Turkey (A-489-853) are being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value. Suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements will continue for entries on or after Jan. 29, the date that the preliminary determinations were published in the Federal Register. Cash deposit rates set in these final determinations take effect June 18.