Design deficiencies in Apple’s Powerbeat Pro wireless earbuds and their charging case cause “a significant percentage of users” to experience “battery draining and charging issues,” limiting the product’s “functionality and usage,” alleged New Yorker Alejandro Vivar in a fraud complaint (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that seeks class-action status. Vivar bought the earbuds at a Best Buy store in the Bronx, believing their battery would last for the nine hours of listening time promised in Apple’s ads, and that both earbuds “would charge and maintain their charges equally,” unaffected by perspiration, said the complaint. But perspiration causes the charging contacts on the earbuds and in the case to corrode, “which contributes to a failure to charge,” it said. Customers who contact Apple about the corrosion are told it's due to “liquid ingress, which would be sweat,” it said. Apple will then “rely on its terms and conditions which purport to void any warranties based on liquid ingress, and the only option will be to pay for a costly repair,” the complaint said. Apple makes other misleading “representations” about the product, and “reasonable consumers must and do rely on a company to honestly identify and describe the components, attributes, and features of a product, relative to itself and other comparable products or alternatives,” the suit said. It alleges violations of the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and breaches of California and New York consumer fraud laws. Apple didn’t comment Friday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network three minutes to discuss concerns with an order dividing the 5.9 GHz band, when judges hear argument Jan. 25. Thursday's order (in Pacer) gives ITS America 12 minutes and respondents 15 minutes. In an order last week, the court said both sides should be prepared to address the question: “What significance should be accorded to the fact that the United States through the Justice Department is representing the FCC not the Department of Transportation?”

LG’s antitrust case alleging Dolby Labs reneged on its ATSC commitments to license AC-4 audio codec patents for NextGenTV on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms (see 2201060058) was reassigned Wednesday to U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan, the 1:22-cv-42 docket report shows (in Pacer). Judge Lewis Kaplan is no longer assigned. Crotty, former corporation counsel to Rudy Giuliani in his first term as New York mayor, was Verizon New York and Connecticut president until President George W. Bush appointed him to the federal bench in 2005. LG seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Dolby to stop conduct that LG alleges will harm its brand, but the conduct is hard to definitively discern because the public version of the complaint and its accompanying documents are redacted. LG and Dolby have worked together for more than 30 years “to create high-quality consumer electronics for use in home entertainment, automobiles and mobile devices,” says one of the complaint's few unredacted passages. Yet LG now seeks a declaratory judgment from the court that it has complied with its AC-4 license agreements “in all material aspects and that Dolby has no basis to terminate” those agreements. Dolby and LG didn't comment by Wednesday.

The FTC provided stronger evidence supporting its case against Facebook, and Chair Lina Khan doesn’t need to recuse herself, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. He threw out the social media network’s attempt to dismiss the case, as was expected (see 2108240059). The agency’s newly presented facts fortify its theories, particularly about claims about Facebook’s social networking monopoly, wrote U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in 1:20-cv-03590 (Pacer). The FTC alleged Facebook has a monopoly in personal social networking services and unlawfully maintained that monopoly. Facebook bought rivals Instagram and WhatsApp and unlawfully implemented policies preventing interoperability between Facebook and apps it viewed as nascent threats, the FTC argued. In its amended complaint, the agency presented “detailed factual allegations” and multiple metrics to show Facebook’s market dominance, wrote Boasberg. Facebook argued commissioners' vote authorizing the complaint was invalid because Khan showed prejudgment against the company in her work before joining the agency. Khan was “acting in a prosecutorial capacity, as opposed to in a judicial role, in connection with the vote” and therefore didn’t violate any ethical rules, wrote Boasberg, also as expected. The company didn’t comment.

Two “pertinent and significant” decisions at the U.S. Court of International Trade support the arguments of Section 301 test case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its 1974 Trade Act modification authority by imposing the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese imports and that it violated protections in the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act against sloppy rulemakings, said Akin Gump lawyers for HMTX and Jasco in a notice of supplemental authorities relevant to the Section 301 litigation, posted Monday in docket 1:21-cv-52. Both decisions were handed down after Akin Gump filed its final written brief in the Section 301 case on Nov. 15 (see 2111160003). In Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., decided Nov. 16, the court decided President Donald Trump “acted outside of his delegated authority” when he relied on a modification provision in Section 204 of the Trade Act to increase “safeguard tariffs” to protect the domestic solar panel industry against foreign imports, said Akin Gump. For the purposes of HMTX-Jasco, the court in SEIA said “reading the modification provision as a whole confirms” that Section 307 of the Trade Act “permits only reductions, not increases, in tariff actions,” as HMTX and Jasco argued, it said. The court’s opinion in Invenergy Renewables LLC v. U.S., decided Nov. 17, “likewise supports” the Section 301 plaintiffs’ arguments on APA violations when it vacated a USTR rule because the agency didn’t adequately address the significant comments “raised by opponents of the rule USTR adopted,” said Akin Gump. Oral argument in the Section 301 test case is scheduled for Feb. 1.

Oral argument on Florida’s social media law in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will happen the week of April 25, the court said Monday. In case 21-12355, Florida is challenging a lower court’s preliminary injunction stopping enforcement of the law that makes it unlawful for sites to deplatform political candidates and requires sites to be transparent about policing (see 2112210018).

Three Amazon third-party sellers pleaded guilty for price-fixing DVDs and Blu-rays for "at least" two years through October 2019, reported DOJ Friday. Defendants Morris Sutton, Emmanuel Hourizadeh and Raymond Nouvahian are the second, third and fourth persons to be charged and to plead guilty in the ongoing investigation, it said. “As American consumers increasingly turn to e-commerce, it is critically important to deter, detect and prosecute crimes that prevent fair and open competition in online marketplaces,” said Antitrust Division Chief Jonathan Kanter. Lawyers for the three defendants couldn’t be reached for comment.

Oral argument on Maryland’s digital ad tax will be held virtually Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. at the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby ordered Tuesday in case 1:21-cv-410-LKG. The hearing is on defendant Maryland’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint and U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other plaintiffs’ cross-motion for summary judgment. The sides disagree whether the Tax Injunction Act bars businesses’ challenge (see 2112130053).

A high-stakes legal fight looms between LG Electronics and Dolby Labs after LG's parent company applied Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan for authority to file, under seal, a civil complaint as a "miscellaneous case" of unknown nature that would slap Dolby with a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, according to court records in docket 1:21-mc-00862. Nineteen documents reside in LG’s docket report (in Pacer), all blocked from public access. Descriptors say they include redacted and unredacted versions of LG’s core complaint, plus motions for the TRO and injunction against Dolby, and declarations in support of those motions by Dongkwang Kim and Allan Shampine. A LinkedIn profile (requires password) belonging to Dong hwan Kim, with an English spelling different from in the docket report, says he's a product manager with LG's parent in Seoul. Shampine, a Chicago-based executive vice president with consulting firm Compass Lexecon, is an expert witness in antitrust, patent and securities litigation, specializing in telecommunications, payment systems and intellectual property, says his company bio. The case was assigned Friday to U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick, a 2013 appointee by President Barack Obama. Neither Dolby nor LG responded to requests for comment. LG has been one of Dolby’s biggest partners on the public consumer tech stage, having been among the first major TV brands to endorse Dolby Vision when it did so at CES 2016 (see 1601050040).

A Sony Life Insurance employee stole more than $154 million from the Sony Group subsidiary in May and converted the funds to bitcoins worth more than $180 million, alleged DOJ in a “civil forfeiture” complaint Monday in U.S. District Court in San Diego to “protect and ultimately return” the seized money to Sony. The employee, Rei Ishii, diverted the funds to a private account at a bank in La Jolla, California, by falsifying transaction instructions, said DOJ. Ishii was criminally charged in Japan, and all the bitcoins “traceable to the theft have been recovered and fully preserved,” it said. "We would like to express our gratitude to the U.S. and Japanese authorities, for the stolen funds being located, and recovery procedures are progressing,” emailed a Sony spokesperson Tuesday. Attempts to reach Ishii’s lawyers in Japan for comment were unsuccessful.