The Court of International Trade erred in finding that importer Rimco was required to raise its claims that antidumping and countervailing duty rates violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment regarding excessive fines before the Commerce Department administratively, Rimco told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a March 8 reply brief (Rimco v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2079).

Minnesota lawmakers weighed bills Tuesday to release more cash for broadband and create a tax exemption for fiber broadband. In Florida, electric cooperatives raised concerns a bill to apply pole attachment rules to co-ops would make it harder for them to bring broadband to hard-to-serve areas.

Defendant kitchenware company Food52 agreed to use “reasonable efforts” within 18 months to make its website accessible to the blind and visually impaired, in compliance with Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act. It signed a consent decree March 2 with plaintiff Ramon Fontanez, as posted Monday (docket 1:22-cv-09584) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York.

FCC commissioners emphasized the need for action on spectrum policy and 5G, and more certainty on broadband affordability and deployment efforts, during Incompas’ policy summit Tuesday. Some industry experts also urged changes to sustain the USF because funding for the affordable connectivity program remains uncertain and the USF contribution factor continues to rise.

Uncertainty about the prospects for congressional leaders to break a Senate impasse on the length of a new short-term extension of the FCC’s spectrum auction authority led lawmakers and industry officials to renew warnings, during a Tuesday Incompas event and in interviews, about the potential consequences if Capitol Hill allows the commission’s current mandate to expire as scheduled Thursday. Senators have been grappling with whether to accept a House-passed bill that would renew the FCC’s remit through May 19 (HR-1108) to give lawmakers more time to negotiate a broader spectrum legislative package (see 2302240066). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., implied Monday there wasn’t a deal then (see 2303060071).

Disagreement continued between inmate calling services providers and consumer advocacy organizations about how the FCC should proceed with setting permanent ICS rates, in reply comments posted Monday in docket 12-375 (see 2212160061). Some also disagreed whether all facilities, regardless of size, should be required to provide telecom relay services. The FCC will consider an item during its March 16 meeting on implementing the Martha Wright-Reed Act (see 2302230059).

T-Mobile seeks an order dismissing with prejudice Michigan First Credit Union’s first amended complaint for failure to state a claim “for indemnification or contribution,” said its Feb. 27 motion (docket 2:22-cv-13159) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Detroit. T-Mobile’s failure to stop SIM-swap fraudsters from draining customers’ bank accounts forces financial institutions to replace the pilfered funds when required to do so under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, and First Michigan seeks repayment of the funds from T-Mobile (see 2302060049). Michigan First “fails to state a claim for indemnification or contribution for a federal liability under the EFTA because the EFTA does not provide for those remedies,” said T-Mobile’s motion to dismiss. In enacting “a comprehensive statutory scheme governing unauthorized transactions,” Congress could have but didn’t create “a mechanism for financial institutions to seek indemnification or contribution from others to pay for their statutory obligations,” it said. The court should decline Michigan First’s invitation to create "a new legal remedy Congress did not authorize.” In raising a claim for indemnification or contribution for a “state liability” under the Michigan Electronic Funds Transfer Act (MEFTA), the statute can’t be “the source for Michigan First’s claims” against T-Mobile, it said. The Federal Reserve Board “has determined the sole MEFTA provision on which Michigan First relies is preempted by the EFTA,” it said. “Michigan First therefore has no MEFTA liability,” it said. “Contribution and indemnity claims based on the MEFTA are preempted because allowing those claims would allow remedies -- contribution and indemnity -- not available under federal law.”

Maryland’s attorney general found no potential constitutional or preemptive problems with a state bill to require kids’ privacy rules, said its sponsor, Del. Jared Solomon (D), at a livestreamed hearing Wednesday. House Economic Matters Committee members appeared to support requirements for websites at a hearing on a bill (HB-901) based on California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. The Minnesota House Commerce Committee voted by voice to advance a similar bill (HF-2257) to the Judiciary Committee at a hearing the same day.

T-Mobile misled its wireless “sub-dealers” when it announced that “hundreds of stores” would be opened after its 2020 Sprint buy, alleged five such sub-dealer plaintiffs in a class action Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-1582) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn. T-Mobile instead embarked on a "concealed and undisclosed corporate strategy" to eliminate the sub-dealers nationally, alleged the plaintiffs.

The House Commerce Committee will rework privacy legislation it passed in 2022 in hopes of strengthening the bill and reaching broader consensus on a comprehensive federal privacy law, Democratic and Republican leadership said Wednesday during a House Innovation Subcommittee hearing.