NAB filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit calling on the court to treat the Standard/Tegna hearing designation order as a final action and calling the order a threat to the broadcast industry. “This Court should treat this order according to its intent and effect -- a de facto final denial of the license application -- and hear the appeal,” NAB said in the brief filed late Thursday. The trade group also filed a motion seeking permission to file the amicus brief. The FCC Media Bureau’s action “on gossamer evidence” injects “untenable unpredictability into license transfer applications,” the trade group said. NAB has historically held back from weighing in on specific deals, but CEO Curtis LeGeyt vocally condemned the HDO earlier this month.“We urge the court to correct this egregious misstep by the FCC," said LeGeyt in a release Thursday. "Unappointed FCC staff have sent this proposed deal to regulatory purgatory, depriving the Commissioners the opportunity to participate in decisions that carry significant implications for broadcast stations and their viewers and listeners." “Public interest review is not a mechanism for regulating licensee business contracts and employment practices,” the filing said. The Media Bureau’s “significant departure” from FCC precedent “means in practice that no party contemplating an investment in broadcast stations can, with any certainty, predict how the FCC will process its license transfer,” NAB said. “The broadcast industry cannot tolerate this kind of unpredictability.”
Antidumping petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for an expedited briefing schedule in a case on the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available due to a 16-minute late submission (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1661).
The U.S. this week charged FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's anti-bribery provisions. Filing a superseding indictment at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York March 27, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Bankman-Fried and others paid around $40 million in cryptocurrency to one or more Chinese government officials to "induce them" to unfreeze certain cryptocurrency trading accounts held by one of Bankman-Fried's companies, Alameda Research (U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, S.D.N.Y. # 22-00673).
The U.S. this week charged FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's anti-bribery provisions. Filing a superseding indictment at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York March 27, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Bankman-Fried and others paid around $40 million in cryptocurrency to one or more Chinese government officials to "induce them" to unfreeze certain cryptocurrency trading accounts held by one of Bankman-Fried's companies, Alameda Research (U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, S.D.N.Y. # 22-00673).
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The Court of International Trade on March 29 dismissed a lawsuit from cell phone case maker Otter Products seeking interest on customs duty overpayments, finding it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Judge Claire Kelly held that the Administrative Procedure Act waiver of sovereign immunity only applies to interest on deposits linked with liquidated entries. As a result, there is no specific waiver of immunity related to Otter's claim for interest for its overpayments on tendered prior disclosures "under the no-interest rule," Kelly said.
Congress intended for subsidies given to "disparate processed agricultural products" to be countervailable under countervailing duty laws, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Ripe Olives argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Responding to arguments from three Spanish olive exporters against the Commerce Department's "substantially dependent finding" in the Spanish olives CVD investigation, the coalition said that Commerce "responsibly interpreted the statutory language broadly" and in line with statutory intent (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1162).
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Commerce made errors in its calculations, choice of data, and use of adverse facts available during the eighth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China, according to four separate motions for judgment filed at the Court of International Trade. The case combined several complaints all challenging aspects of Commerce’s final determination (see 2208300012) (Jinko Solar Import and Export Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00219).
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.