The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to challenge a federal court decision tossing businesses’ challenge to the Maryland digital ad tax’s pass-through ban, the Chamber said Monday. At oral argument last week, U.S. District Court for Northern Maryland Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby signaled she would dismiss without prejudice due to a state court striking down the tax as unconstitutional. In the Friday opinion, Griggsby also denied as moot Maryland’s motion to dismiss and plaintiff U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s motion for summary judgment.
DOJ briefs in the massive Section 301 litigation don't demonstrate that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative considered "major objections contemporaneously with its decisions" to impose the lists 3 and 4A tariffs, the plaintiffs argued in a Dec. 5 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. While USTR relies on presidential direction as the post hoc justification of its decisions, the court already ruled that out as a means of satisfying the Administrative Procedure Act, the brief said. To now satisfy the APA, the U.S. may take new action, but the lists 3 and 4A tariffs may not stay in place based on "conclusory and post hoc rationales," the plaintiffs said (In Re Section 301 Cases, CIT #21-00052).
A bid to circumvent FCC barriers on broadcasters airing ads for cannabis products in states where they're legal faces uncertain prospects on Capitol Hill. Federal law bars broadcasters from carrying ads for marijuana and other schedule 1 controlled substances. The House passed its FY23 FCC appropriations bill (HR-8294) in July with a rider barring the FCC from using its funding to revoke or otherwise condition a broadcaster’s license because it airs ads for cannabis products (see 2206270061).
The 27 plaintiff-appellees in Verizon’s 9th Circuit appeal of a district court’s denial of its motion to compel arbitration seek a 65-day extension to Feb. 24 to file their answering brief, said their unopposed motion Thursday (docket 22-16020). The plaintiff-appellees don’t deny that arbitration terms existed in their customer agreements when they signed up for Verizon service, but U.S. District Judge Edward Chen for Northern California in San Francisco agreed with them in a July 1 order that the arbitration provisions were unconscionable and unenforceable.
After a vote to add sick leave days to the railroad workers' contract garnered a majority, but didn't reach the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate, the Senate voted 81-15 to impose the previously negotiated contract on the 12 railroad unions. Four of those unions, including the largest one, had been threatening a strike on Dec. 9, which would have disrupted 40% of cargo transport. The other unions would have honored the picket lines.
Communications and tech industry members of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the High Tech Inventors Alliance and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation often find themselves the targets of “baseless suits” funded by third parties “in exchange for a share of the suit’s recovery,” said the groups in an amicus brief Wednesday at the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. They oppose the mandamus petition of Nimitz Technologies to vacate an order from Chief U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly for Delaware demanding that Nimitz produce by Dec. 8 a volume of documents showing how it’s financing its four patent infringement lawsuits against defendants Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, Cnet and Imagine Learning.
After a vote to add sick leave days to the railroad workers' contract garnered a majority, but didn't reach the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate, the Senate voted 81-15 to impose the previously negotiated contract on the 12 railroad unions. Four of those unions, including the largest one, had been threatening a strike on Dec. 9, which would have disrupted 40% of cargo transport. The other unions would have honored the picket lines.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would impose the contract that eight rail unions approved but four rejected, a contract that protects health insurance benefits and increases pay 24% across four years, with more than half of those pay increases applied retroactively, since the last contract expired in mid-2020.
Federal court review of the Maryland digital ad tax’s pass-through ban could soon be dismissed without prejudice. Expect a ruling “very promptly,” said U.S. District Court for Northern Maryland Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby at a virtual motions hearing Tuesday. Griggsby signaled she was inclined to rule the case moot due to a recent state court decision striking down the tax (see 2210240064). Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) appealed that ruling to the state’s Special Appeals Court, said a notice last week at the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County (case C-02-CV-21-000509).
Having heard the spectrum and regulatory needs of in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing companies, the FCC now needs to move quickly on an NPRM to address them, ISAM operators said in docket 22-271 reply comments Tuesday. The commission received comments last month in its notice of inquiry about ways to aid nascent ISAM operations (see 2211010025). NTIA said it and federal agencies "support and commend" FCC efforts toward ensuring ISAM industry activities have access to spectrum and helping drive ISAM growth.