Market Newsdesk

Major supply chain agreements will ensure broad access to rapid testing solutions for patients and healthcare providers across US

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Intrivo Diagnostics, a Los Angeles-based diagnostic testing provider committed to addressing the urgent demand for high-quality testing solutions for COVID-19, today announced that it will begin national distribution and commercialization of diagnostic testing products developed by New Jersey-based testing manufacturer, Access Bio, Inc. through Concordance Healthcare Solutions and NDC, Inc.

As Access Bio’s exclusive US commercialization partner, Intrivo’s new channel agreements will expand the supply chain for the CareStart^TM line of COVID-19 testing products across the country, ensuring greater access to testing supplies for healthcare providers and organizations. To date, Access Bio has received FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for its RT-PCR test, IgM/IgG antibody test and most recently, a rapid point-of-care (POC) antigen test.

“These are landmark agreements for Access Bio and Intrivo, as well as for healthcare providers and their patients in need of high-quality testing,” said Reeve Benaron, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Intrivo Diagnostics. “With the help of our new channel partners, we can dramatically broaden the reach and distribution of our CareStart portfolio, ensuring that healthcare workers and patients have easy access to rapid testing solutions like point-of-care antigen, to diagnose, trace and curb the pandemic’s spread in the name of public health.”

The CareStart^TM COVID-19 antigen test is a lateral-flow immunochromatographic assay capable of producing results within 10 minutes of being administered with 88.4% sensitivity and 100% specificity. The test is a self-contained, single-use product designed to detect extracted nucleocapsid protein antigens specific to SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal specimens collected from individuals suspected of being infected with COVID-19 or exposed to COVID-19. The assay includes a swab, a vial of extraction solution and a cassette the size of a small flash drive. A positive test result is indicated by a visible line in the cassette and doesn’t require any special technical training to use. Each kit can administer up to 20 antigen tests.

Concordance Healthcare Solutions and NDC, Inc. are proven leaders in distributing medical and laboratory products throughout the continuum of care. From providing technologies and delivery solutions, to contract and sales support, their involvement will help Intrivo Diagnostics and Access Bio guarantee delivery of CareStart^TM testing solutions safely and cost-effectively throughout the US.

“Testing remains an invaluable tool in America’s fight against COVID-19,” said Mr. Young H. Choi, Chairman and CEO, Access Bio. “By enhancing our supply chain to ensure greater access to our products, we’re confident that our company can play a vital role in helping restore a sense of normalcy to the US. Our tests will not only continue to be critical in diagnosing COVID-19 exposure, but also in corroborating vaccine efficacy as deployment gets underway in 2021.”

Established in 2002, Access Bio has a proven track record of releasing top-performing products, including its CareStart^TM Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT).

Access Bio distributes its products to more than 120 countries around the world, thanks to scalable infrastructure consisting of R&D and production facilities in the United States, South Korea and Ethiopia. Access Bio is traded on the Korean Stock Exchange (KRX) under the stock symbol, KR: 950130.

For more information about Access Bio and the CareStart^TM COVID-19 line of products, please visit: https://accessbiodiagnostics.net/

For more information about Intrivo Diagnostics, please visit: https://intrivo.com/  

About Access Bio:


Access Bio, headquartered in New Jersey, was founded by Mr. Young H. Choi in 2002. The company has a proven track record of releasing top-performing products, including its CareStart^TM Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) Access Bio distributes its products to more than 120 countries around the world, thanks to a scalable infrastructure consisting of R&D and production facilities in the U.S., South Korea, and Ethiopia. Access Bio is traded on the Korean Stock Exchange (KRX) under the stock symbol, KR: 950130.

About


Intrivo


Diagnostics:


Headquartered in Los Angeles, Intrivo Diagnostics is an organization driven by science and dedicated to providing sophisticated and accurate diagnostic testing to save lives and slow the spread of infectious diseases. Intrivo Diagnostics’ mission is to distribute exceptional products to address the urgent demand for high-quality diagnostic testing. In keeping with that mission, Intrivo Diagnostic is the exclusive commercialization partner for Access Bio, Inc.’s CareStart^TM line of COVID-19 testing products, all of which are solely manufactured in the U.S.

About Concordance Healthcare Solutions
:
Concordance Healthcare Solutions, one of the largest, independent, healthcare distributors in the U.S, is built on over 175 years of combined industry experience through the merger of three of the nation’s premier healthcare distributors. Concordance spans the U.S. market with twenty distribution centers licensed in forty-seven states. Concordance delivers dynamic, dependable service to the entire care continuum including Acute Care, Community Health, Government, Home Care, Hospice, Laboratory, Long Term Care, Primary Care and Surgery Centers. In addition, Concordance has experts dedicated to healthcare education and redistribution while offering comprehensive support for every step of your equipment, remodeling and construction project needs. To learn more, please visit www.concordancehealthcare.com.

About NDC, Inc.
:
Founded in 1953, NDC serves the largest network of healthcare distributors in North America, with more than 1,200 distributors located throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam. NDC also serves over 700 healthcare manufacturers and most major GPOs. Through our distribution partnerships, NDC services providers across the full continuum of healthcare. We aim to serve our customers by helping to access new markets and products, grow sales, and reduce operating and transaction costs. Learn more at www.ndc-inc.com.

Media Contact:

Veronica Amenta
[email protected]

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — BigPanda, Inc., provider of the first Event Correlation and Automation platform powered by AIOps, today announced significant momentum in the face of the challenges brought by COVID-19, including a number of key customer wins and powerful new integration capabilities to support ServiceNow customers and a multitude of other systems. In addition, the company has launched a new online self-service resource called BigPanda University, and is offering to meet attendees at the upcoming Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference 2020.

2020 Growth and Customer Success

During fiscal year 2020, the company added 31 Fortune 500 companies as customers, including seven in the Fortune 100, doubling its enterprise customer base. New customers include household names across all industries and sizes, including Expedia, Sony Interactive, Wiley, Fanatics, LogMeIn and TIVIT. To capitalize on their momentum, the company has continued to build out the Go To Market team to support accelerated growth in 2021.

This year, BigPanda also saw a 96% renewal rate across their customer base, with a 99.4% cumulative customer satisfaction score. This demonstrates that, in addition to new growth, the business is retaining happy customers who see strategic and continued value in BigPanda’s solution.

“Every business faced a multitude of unforeseen challenges in 2020, so we’re both proud and grateful to our new and existing customers who continue to place trust in us as they navigate today’s circumstances,” said Assaf Resnick, CEO and co-founder, BigPanda. “As we look ahead to 2021, we have put ourselves in an advantageous competitive position, and our commitment to continually evolving our industry-leading platform will keep us there for the foreseeable future.”

New AIOps Integration with ServiceNow

Based on customer demand, BigPanda has developed a new integration with ServiceNow, providing additional value to joint customers from their ServiceNow instances. With today’s large enterprises embracing a best-of-breed tools strategy involving the adoption of world-class solutions like ServiceNow and BigPanda, this new integration enables:

• Easily customizable ticketing automation. In minutes, users can quickly customize and fine-tune the behavior of their ticketing integration (e.g. define new logic to populate the priority of a ticket or link a ticket to specific CIs based on alert tags) without needing to rely on expensive professional services or a long in-house development project.
• Enhanced,
  highly intuitive administration UI. The new streamlined admin UI enables users to easily and quickly configure and customize all three aspects of the integration: Automated Ticketing, Change Management and CMDB/Topology.
• Fully extendable capabilities. For customers looking to create highly advanced logic, BigPanda makes it easy to customize and tweak the integration’s ServiceNow scripts and business rules. BigPanda provides an out-of-the-box library of examples, code snippets and documentation for fast results.

Additionally, BigPanda has announced the launch of Integrations Diagnostics, a new capability that helps customers rapidly build, fine-tune and troubleshoot custom integrations on their own, and bring in new sources of data and address evolving business needs. Integrations Diagnostics makes it easy for teams to bring in data from commercial, homegrown, legacy or other niche tools with the full support that BigPanda is known for.

Introducing BigPanda University

The company has also announced the launch of BigPanda University, an online resource where prospects and customers can consume content including a library of “Getting Started” videos, guides and best practices documentation to help users get the most value from the BigPanda platform. BigPanda University reaffirms the company’s commitment to ease-of-use and a world-class, self-service user experience by providing the necessary tools to empower and enable success throughout the AIOps journey.

BigPanda University also offers advanced learning opportunities, allowing users to take a deeper dive and walk through the steps of a highly effective workflow for incident management.

“One aspect of a comprehensive self-service experience is the creation of an extensive set of customer education content, for all the stages of the product onboarding process and all levels of usage,” said Elik Eizenberg, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, BigPanda. “The content housed under the BigPanda University umbrella are valuable companions to our comprehensive documentation library and FAQ knowledge base, further reinforcing the rapid time to value we deliver for our users.”

BigPanda at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference

BigPanda will take part in the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference, an online event taking place Dec. 7-10. The company will meet with Gartner customers and analysts during the virtual conference, showcasing its AIOps-powered Event Correlation and Automation solution and to attendees who want to understand how they can successfully adopt AIOps.

A complete conference agenda can be found here.

Why BigPanda

BigPanda helps businesses prevent and resolve IT outages with their platform for Event Correlation and Automation, powered by AIOps. Without BigPanda, IT Ops and DevOps teams struggle with manual and reactive incident response capabilities that are badly suited for the scale, complexity and velocity of modern IT environments. This results in painful outages, unhappy customers, growing IT headcount and the inability to focus on innovation.

Fortune 500 enterprises such as Intel, Cisco, United, Nike, Marriott and Expedia rely on BigPanda to prevent outages, reduce costs, and give their teams time back for digital transformation. BigPanda helps organizations take a giant step towards Autonomous IT Operations by turning IT noise into insights and manual tasks into automated actions. BigPanda is backed by top-tier investors including Sequoia Capital, Mayfield, Battery Ventures, Greenfield Partners and Insight Partners. Visit www.bigpanda.io for more information.

Media contact:

Sammy Totah
BOCA Communications for BigPanda
[email protected]

SARASOTA, Fla., Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Star2Star, a global leader in cloud-native communications, collaboration, and integration solutions for the enterprise, announced today that TMC, a global, integrated media company, and its TMC Labs product review division, named their cloud-native platform as a 2020 Unified Communications TMC Labs Innovation Award winner. This is the third year Star2Star has been recognized with this award.

Star2Star’s unique approach to business communications and collaboration started with their innovative on-premise cloud solution and proprietary network backbone. Their portfolio has grown to include a comprehensive suite including cloud and on-premise solutions, Team Hub for collaboration, browser-based Video Meetings, Service Insight for customer engagement, and advanced Contact Center software. Star2Star also differentiates themselves in the market as a leader in customization and integration options with their Integration Studio, which offers a wide selection of microapp integrations to any third-party software, and a Desktop-as-a-Service solution powered by Citrix Virtual Workspaces.

“We are thrilled to be recognized as a recipient of the TMC Labs Innovation Award,” said Michelle Accardi President and Chief Revenue Officer at Star2Star. “Innovation is a core motivation for us, and we have striven to continuously deliver better and smarter technology for our customers. Our on-premise cloud platform, the first of its kind on the market, started it all, and we are proud of how far we have come! We look forward to consistently providing the solutions our customers need to overcome any business challenge.”

The TMC Labs Innovation Award is selected by the distinguished engineers at TMC Labs and honors products that have demonstrated innovation, unique features, and noteworthy developments toward improving communications technology.

“Star2Star has displayed its commitment to quality and innovation in the development of the unified communications industry,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “I look forward to more innovation from Star2Star and their continued effort toward improving the future of the UC industry.”

The 2020 TMC Labs Innovation Award winners will be featured on INTERNET TELEPHONY online.

About Star2Star

In an increasingly complex world, businesses need to simplify the way they communicate, collaborate, and seamlessly integrate third-party applications into their operations and processes. Star2Star meets that need with its patented cloud-native collaboration platform designed for the modern enterprise that extends the company’s record of success in maintaining a 99.4% customer retention rate.

Star2Star has delivered consistently innovative solutions to enterprise communication and collaboration challenges since 2006. Throughout its history, it has demonstrated a commitment to the continuous upgrading of cutting-edge technology to anticipate and address rapidly evolving enterprise needs. The company entered the market as the only UCaaS provider with an on-premises cloud platform that combined cloud flexibility with an ultra-reliable proprietary network. Today, its suite of enterprise communication and collaboration solutions offers unparalleled value, reliability, quality, scalability, and capacity to unify people and processes within an intuitive, cloud-native environment.

Star2Star has been named to such prestigious lists as the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Inc. 500|5000, Omdia Top 10 UCaaS Service Provider, and Forbes Most Promising Companies. Recognition of its pioneering innovation in the enterprise cloud market extends to major industry analyst indicators such as inclusion in the Frost Radar North American Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Industry reports and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS, Worldwide.

Casey O’Loughlin
[email protected] 

BOSTON and DURHAM, N.C., Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Parexel, a leading provider of solutions to accelerate the development and delivery of innovative therapies to improve world health, from clinical through commercialization, today announced it was named the “Best Contract Research Organization” in the Full-Service Provider category at the Digital 16^th Annual Scrip Awards. The award was presented at the virtual awards ceremony Dec. 2.

“This award belongs to our exceptionally talented staff — the people working tirelessly to deliver critical insights for our customers and improve patient outcomes,” said Jamie Macdonald, Chief Executive Officer. “We are honored to be recognized as the industry’s Best CRO by Scrip and even more pleased to see our industry — in the face of a global pandemic — take this opportunity to accelerate the adoption of a real-world, data-driven approach to clinical trial design to bring new therapies to patients sooner.”

The annual Scrip awards, organized by Informa Pharma Intelligence, the premier source of information for the global pharmaceutical and biomedical industry, are designed to celebrate the contributions of the pharmaceutical, biotech and other allied industries to improving human health worldwide. Parexel was selected by a distinguished panel of life science industry executives based on the company’s capabilities and strengths specifically related to delivering results to exceed sponsor expectations; providing innovative patient recruitment strategies; improving quality of data, timelines and transparency; and streamlining data collection and reporting.

About Parexel

Parexel supports the development of innovative new medicines to improve the health of patients. We provide services to help life science and biopharmaceutical clients everywhere transform scientific discoveries into new treatments. From clinical trials to regulatory and consulting services to commercial and market access, our therapeutic, technical and functional ability is underpinned by a deep conviction in what we do. For more information, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

CONTACT:

Parexel

Lori Dorer
+1 978 495 4135
[email protected]

W2O

Lindsay LeCain
+1 508 259 9521
[email protected]

GLYFADA, Greece, Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Globus Maritime Limited (“Globus” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: GLBS), a dry bulk shipping company, announced today that it will release financial results for the three and nine months period ended September 30, 2020, after the market closes in New York on Friday December 4, 2020.

About Globus Maritime Limited

Globus is an integrated dry bulk shipping company that provides marine transportation services worldwide and presently owns, operates and manages a fleet of six dry bulk vessels that transport iron ore, coal, grain, steel products, cement, alumina and other dry bulk cargoes internationally. Globus’ subsidiaries own and operate six vessels with a total carrying capacity of 381,738 Dwt and a weighted average age of 10.9 years as of September 30, 2020.

KELOWNA, British Columbia, Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Allied Corp. (“Allied” or the “Company”) (OTCQB: ALID), an international medical cannabis company focused on creating and providing targeted cannabinoid health solutions to address today’s medical issues is pleased to announce an endorsement contract with elite athlete, David Lipson (“Lipson”), Founder of Thunder Bro Athletic Company.

Lipson is a world-renowned athlete that founded an elite athlete training company called “Thundrbro”. As a professional baseball player and now a strength and conditioning leader, Lipson travels the world training trainers on how nutrition, training and athletic mind set impact sport performance and life. Lipson’s National reputation in the Unites States has several thousands of followers that adhere to his training programs and is well respected athlete within the trainer community. Lipson has trained entertainment celebrities, professional Major League Baseball and National Football League athletes and Crossfit Games champions.

Thundrbro is a training and lifestyle brand with a goal to bring quality products, information, and resources to help people live optimally. Building a camaraderie and respect for every member of the Thundrbro community is rooted in brotherhood, hard work, and optimal living. The Thundrbro mission is to make the world a better place through physical training, mental toughness with a winning mindset. The whole goal is to become better together and elevate those around you. This is very much aligned with Allied’s products.

The strong vision that Thundrbro brings to the world aligns with Allied’s vision to help those suffering heal within community. Peer support and access to resources is a large part of what Allied offers. Included in this is Allied’s products that are offered under its four brands: Equilibrium Bio, Tactical Relief, MaXXa and Buds Pure Naturals. Under each brand there are several products currently offered for sale.

“I believe that what the Allied team is building perfectly aligns with the Thundrbro approach to life. Hard work, elevated mindset and a healthy approach to life is what the Thundrbro tribe strives for. I believe in the products and stand behind Allied’s vision in creating pharmaceutical and natural health products for targeted health and wellness.” says David Lipson, Allied Brand Ambassador.

“With the launch of Equilibrium, this further extends our brand portfolio beyond the typical CBD products currently in the marketplace. With months of product development, formulating the proper taste and hydration profiles, we truly believe we have developed a product that will be widely recognized by elite athletes, and rapidly become one of our best selling products. All of our products are formulated with an end user in mind and we are one of a handful of companies to develop a CBD drink that delivers on taste and performance.” said Calum Hughes, Founder and CEO of Allied Corp.

Some of
Allied’s
Products:
https://tacticalrelief.com/cbdproducts/

About the Tactical Relief™ Brand by Allied:

Tactical Relief™ is a patriotic brand under which health and wellness product are brought to market to serve veterans and first responders. The flagship product “Liberty” is a hemp derived CBD tincture for sale in the US. Additional products include Tactical Hydration, a CBD infused electrolyte replacement drink.

About the Equilibrium Bio™ Brand by Allied:

Equilibrium Bio is a lifestyle brand that is focused on everything Athletic. From Crossfit workouts to Ironman races to general athletic consumers, Equilibrium Bio products are there with the athlete along the entire competitive journey. Hydration is a primary focus for this brand and its products.

About the
MaXXa
Brand by Allied:

MaXXa is an elegant line of health products that was brought to market to serve the health minded population cohort that care about their skin. The flagship products consist of CBD infused anti-aging eye serum, topical skin tightening lotions, lip care products and skin care creams.

For more general information on
Allied Corp
.
 visit www.allied.health

About Allied Corp.

Allied Corp. is an international medical cannabis production company with a mission to address today’s medical issues by researching, creating and producing targeted cannabinoid health solutions. Allied Corp. uses an evidence-informed scientific approach to make this mission possible, through cutting-edge pharmaceutical research and development, innovative plant-based production and unique development of therapeutic products.

Investor Relations:

[email protected]

1-877-255-4337

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable securities laws in Canada or “forward-looking statements” made pursuant to the “safe harbour” provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, “forward-looking information”). Forward-looking information may relate to the Company’s future outlook and anticipated events, plans or results, and may include information regarding the Company’s objectives, goals, strategies, future revenue or performance and capital expenditures, and other information that is not historical information. Forward-looking information can often be identified by the use of terminology such as “believe,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “expect,” “pending,” “in process,” “intend,” “estimate,” “project,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “could,” “can,” the negatives thereof, variations thereon and similar expressions. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is based on the Company’s opinions, estimates and assumptions in light of management’s experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that management currently believes are appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances. Forward looking statements in this press release include the following: that Allied is leveraging the conditions in its Colombia grow operation and future Kelowna location to support its Research and Development efforts; that Allied is making important strides forward to position itself as a leader in the medical cannabis space, that Allied intends to make a series of proposed trademark and other intellectual property protection filings, as part of the Company’s Intellectual Property and Pharma Development (IP&PD) Strategy, statements respecting the joint development, manufacturing, and introduction of TACTICAL RELIEF™ branded products, and the use of proceeds from the offering of convertible notes.

There can be no assurance that the underlying opinions, estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. Risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking information in this release include: the Company’s exposure to legal and regulatory risk; the effect of the legalization of adult-use cannabis in Canada and Colombia on the medical cannabis industry is unknown and may significantly and negatively affect the Company’s medical cannabis business; that the medical benefits, viability, safety, efficacy, dosing and social acceptance of cannabis are not as currently expected; that adverse changes or developments affecting the Company’s main or planned facilities may have an adverse effect on the Company; that the medical cannabis industry and market may not continue to exist or develop as anticipated or the Company may not be able to succeed in this market; risks related to completion of the greenhouse construction in Colombia, risks related to market competition; risks related to the proposed adult-use cannabis industry and market in Canada and Colombia including the Company’s ability to enter into or compete in such markets; that the Company has a limited operating history and a history of net losses and that it may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future; risks related to the Company’s current or proposed international operations; risks related to future third party strategic alliances or the expansion of currently existing relationships with third parties; that the Company may not be able to successfully identify and execute future acquisitions or dispositions or successfully manage the impacts of such transactions on its operations; risks inherent to the operation of an agricultural business; that the Company may be unable to attract, develop and retain key personnel; risks resulting from significant interruptions to the Company’s access to certain key inputs such as raw materials, electricity, water and other utilities; that the Company may be unable to transport its cannabis products to patients in a safe and efficient manner; risks related to recalls of the Company’s cannabis products or product liability or regulatory claims or actions involving the Company’s cannabis products; risks related to the Company’s reliance on pharmaceutical distributors; that the Company, or the cannabis industry more generally, may receive unfavourable publicity or become subject to negative consumer or investor perception; that certain events or developments in the cannabis industry more generally may impact the Company’s reputation or its relationships with customers or suppliers; that the Company may not be able to obtain adequate insurance coverage in respect of the risks that it faces, that the premiums for such insurance may not continue to be commercially justifiable or that there may be coverage limitations and other exclusions which may result in such insurance not being sufficient; that the Company may become subject to liability arising from fraudulent or illegal activity by its employees, contractors, consultants and others; that the Company may experience breaches of security at its facilities or losses as a result of the theft of its products; risks related to the Company’s information technology systems; that the Company may be unable to sustain its revenue growth and development; that the Company may be unable to expand its operations quickly enough to meet demand or manage its operations beyond their current scale; that the Company may be unable to secure adequate or reliable sources of necessary funding; risks related to, or associated with, the Company’s exposure to reporting requirements; risks related to conflicts of interest; risks related to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; risks related to the Company’s potential exposure to greater-than-anticipated tax liabilities; risks related to the protection and enforcement of the Company’s intellectual property rights, or the intellectual property that it licenses from others; that the Company may become subject to allegations that it or its licensors are in violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties; that the Company may not realize the full benefit of the clinical trials or studies that it participates in; that the Company may not realize the full benefit of its licenses if the licensed material has less market appeal than expected and the licenses may not be profitable; as well as any other risks that may be further described in and the risk factors discussed in the Company’s continuous disclosure including its Management’s Discussion and Analysis sections in its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form 10-K and Current Reports on Form 8-K filed under the Company’s profile at www.sec.gov.

Although management has attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information in this presentation, there may be other risk factors not presently known to the Company or that the Company presently believes are not material that could also cause actual results or future events to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking information in this presentation. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers and viewers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date made. The forward-looking information contained in this release represents the Company’s expectations as of the date of this release or the date indicated, regardless of the time of delivery of the presentation. The Company disclaims any intention, obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities laws.

Washington, D.C., Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan nonprofit civil rights group, filed a motion for completion of the record or for consideration of extra-record evidence attaching nine incriminating documents in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming in R-CALF, et al. v. USDA, et al. The lawsuit challenges USDA’s violation of  both the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by establishing and utilizing two separate advisory committees to provide recommendations for implementing the mandatory use of “radio frequency identification” (RFID) eartags, but failing to follow the proper procedures for doing so.

In 2017, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) established the “Cattle Traceability Working Group.” NCLA client Kenny Fox was a member of the CTWG and a vocal critic of its proposals to require RFID eartags. Upon discovering that the CTWG was not producing the pro-RFID recommendations they desired, certain CTWG members sought to exclude anyone who opposed mandatory RFID from further participation, eventually starting a second advisory committee called the “Producer Traceability Council” or PTC. High-level USDA employees were actively involved with both the CTWG and PTC, but failed to follow the requirements of FACA by, among other things, ignoring public notice requirements and blocking participation of those opposed to RFID requirements. Mr. Fox and other cattle producers who oppose mandating RFID eartag use have been entirely excluded from PTC membership, with only pro-RFID individuals and companies (such as electronic eartag manufacturers) being allowed to participate.

The present motion is asking the court to add nine documents to the Administrative Record in this case. All of them are crucial to the issue at hand—showing that USDA “established” and “utilized” the CTWG and PTC as advisory committees in the development of the 2019 Factsheet and policy to move forward with mandating cattle and bison producers to use RFID eartags. The proffered documents enumerate the involvement of the senior USDA officials in creating and orchestrating the CTWG’s recommendations for USDA to adopt a mandatory RFID regime—such as organizing the Strategy Forum in 2017 where CTWG was established and later called “Our [USDA’s] National Forum,” as well as drafting the white paper in the aftermath.

The USDA’s briefs filed to date suggest that it will defend itself against R-CALF’s FACA claims by asserting that the Act is inapplicable to USDA’s interactions with the two advisory committees. It is important for the court to add the proffered documents to the Administrative Record in order to consider them when evaluating the ultimate question of whether USDA violated FACA when establishing and working with these two groups—while also failing to comply with the procedural requirements of the Act.

NCLA released the following statement:

“Our battle against USDA’s unlawful push to force livestock producers to use RFID eartags continues.  Our latest efforts are designed to ensure that the Court has a full record on which to evaluate our FACA claim against USDA. While USDA has sought to avoid its obligations under FACA and the APA, we will keep moving forward to demand accountability and transparency in order to protect the constitutional and property rights of livestock producers throughout the country.”

— Harriet Hageman, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

For more information visit the case page
here
.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.

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