U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter for Southern New York in Manhattan scheduled a telephonic status conference July 20 at 3 p.m. EDT on the petition by former Amazon third-party seller Cowin Technology to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor, said Carter’s signed order Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-03054). Cowin is seeking to remand the petition to New York Supreme Court where it originated before Amazon removed it to federal court (see 2305100001). Cowin seeks to recover $1.09 million in sales proceeds that Amazon seized -- and an arbitrator let Amazon keep -- when it accused the seller of violating its business solutions agreement by manipulating product reviews.
Defendant Secure IP Telecom (SIPT), in an unusual single-page answer to plaintiff Brandon Luna’s May 2 Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action (see 2305030002), denied it’s the company that inundated Luna with prerecorded telemarketing calls to promote its America Voice brand. SIPT has never contacted Luna, nor did it ever send him prerecorded messages “as stated in the details of the suit,” SIPT’s counsel, Andrew Shamis of Shamis & Gentile in Miami, wrote U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston in an undated letter posted Tuesday (docket 4:23-cv-01630). SIPT also never owned the “originating” phone number, 631-400-3100, that Luna’s complaint cited as the source of the annoying calls, said the letter: “We are not the America Voice company you are looking for.”
The complaint from Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) alleging TikTok is violating the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by duping Arkansas citizens about the risks of using TikTok belongs back in Union County Circuit Court, said Griffin’s reply brief Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-01038) in U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas in El Dorado in support of his motion to remand (see 2306090047). The case originated in the circuit court before TikTok removed it to federal court.
Dish Wireless names VodafoneZiggo's Eben Albertyn executive vice president-chief technology officer, joining in September to replace Dave Mayo and Marc Rouanne; Mayo, executive vice president-network development, retires, transitioning to strategic adviser, and Rouanne, executive vice president-chief network officer, becomes executive vice president-global partnerships; Dish also promotes Satish Sharma to executive vice president-network deployment … Communications Workers of America elects Claude Cummings, CWA vice president District 6 and ex-AT&T, as president, and Ameenah Salaam, assistant-CWA international president, as secretary-treasurer … Big Ten Conference adds Northwestern University’s Paul Kennedy as vice president-sports communications and UCLA’s Scott Markley as vice president-strategic communications, both effective Aug. 7 ... E2open, connected supply chain software platform, names Quest Software’s Greg Randolph chief commercial officer, effective July 31.
Walmart seeks leave to exceed ordinary page limits when it moves for dismissal by Aug. 11 of the FTC’s June 30 amended complaint (see 2307030001), said its motion Friday (docket 1:22-cv-03372) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. The agency alleges Walmart continued to process fraud-induced money transfers at its stores while failing to do enough to warn consumers of the risks and help them make informed choices. Though the FTC’s “basic theory of liability” in the amended complaint remains the same as that “propounded in its original,” the commission added 63 paragraphs of new allegations, “rendering the amended complaint 26 pages longer than the original,” said Walmart’s motion. Rather than asserting two counts against Walmart as it did in its original, the FTC’s amended complaint now asserts four counts -- one claiming a violation of Section 5 of the FTC, and three claiming violations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, it said. Walmart contends the FTC’s amended complaint “continues to suffer from several fatal defects that warrant dismissal,” it said. Walmart seeks permission to file briefs of the same length that the court permitted in connection with its initial motion to dismiss, it said. The FTC’s legal theories “continue to be unprecedented,” and it has now added allegations regarding a “litany” of examples of money transfers processed at various Walmart stores across the country “at various points in time,” it said. “The key factual allegations underlying each of these transactions -- including the nature of the alleged scam and Walmart’s alleged involvement -- are different and will therefore implicate distinct lines of argument,” said Walmart. Extending the ordinary page limit “will allow Walmart to address the FTC’s 26 pages of new allegations,” and explain how they don’t overcome “the multiple independent pleading deficiencies identified” in the court’s March 27 order partially dismissing the agency’s allegations, it said. Consistent with the page limits permitted by the court in connection with Walmart’s initial motion to dismiss, Walmart asks the court to increase the page limit to 40 for Walmart’s memorandum of law in support of its motion to dismiss, and increase the page limit for Walmart’s reply in support of its motion to dismiss to 20, it said. The FTC doesn’t oppose the motion, it said.
Communications Litigation Today is tracking the following lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions:
Defendant Match Group and its affiliated dating websites, via their June 15 motion to reconsider (see 2306160044), ask U.S. District Judge Manish Shah for Northern Illinois in Chicago to abandon “a well-reasoned decision because they regret the result of their own litigation decisions,” said plaintiff Marcus Baker’s opposition Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-06924). Match Group’s motion asserts Shah’s May 31 ruling denying its motion to dismiss erred by deciding the issue of small claims court jurisdiction instead of leaving it for the small claims court to decide. It also contends Shah mistakenly ruled small claims courts lack jurisdiction over Baker’s claims. The defendants seek reconsideration of Shah’s “correctly decided” order, “neither on the basis of newly discovered facts nor because the controlling law has changed,” said Baker’s opposition. They instead contend the court committed a “manifest error of law” because it failed to account for arguments the defendants could have made, “but knowingly elected not to make, in support of their original motion” to dismiss,” it said. Their dissatisfaction with the result of their motion, and their “belated presentment of arguments” they failed to include in their original motion aren’t valid bases for reconsideration, it said, so the motion for reconsideration should be denied. Baker alleges Match Group and its affiliated dating websites collect, analyze and use unique biometric identifiers associated with people’s faces in photos uploaded to their apps and websites without disclosing or acknowledging the collection or requesting consent.
Communications Litigation Today is tracking the following lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions:
Walmart is well aware that telemarketing frauds “induce people to use Walmart’s money transfer services to send money to domestic and international fraud rings,” said the FTC’s complaint against the retailer (docket 1:22-cv-03372) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago, amended Friday to bolster the agency’s fraud claims under the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Walmart “continued to process fraud-induced transfers at its stores while failing to take sufficient steps to warn consumers of the risks and help them make informed choices,” it said.
Amazon “failed its burden” to establish that the U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan has subject-matter jurisdiction over the case involving third-party seller Shenzhen Zongheng Domain Network, said the seller’s reply memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-03334). Shenzhen Zongheng wants its petition to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor remanded to New York County Supreme Court where it originated before Amazon removed it April 21 to the Southern District of New York (see 2304210001). Amazon deactivated the seller’s account and seized its $507,619 in sales proceeds for allegedly manipulating customer product reviews. An arbitrator ruled in January that Amazon was entitled to keep the money. The removing party “bears the burden of proving that the district court has subject matter jurisdiction,” said the seller’s reply memorandum in further support of the remand. A federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction “can be established through either diversity jurisdiction or federal question jurisdiction,” and Amazon failed to establish either, it said. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its March 2022 decision in Badgerow v. Walters, “reasoned that a petition to vacate an arbitration award concerns the contractual rights provided in the arbitration agreement, which typically only raises matters of state law,” said the memorandum. “Adjudication of such state-law contractual rights typically belongs in state courts,” it said.