Appeals Court Delivers a Mixed Decision in Iowa Book Banning Case (publishersweekly.com)

Port congestion continues to haunt global trade, spreading fresh fears among exporters andimporters over whether massive amounts of cargo will be delivered on time for the busy, year-end shopping season. Supply chains never fully recovered from the pandemic shock when goods transported by seawere delayed and shipping prices soared. Now freight rates are falling, but cargo is still delayed at choked European and American ports. “Ships are still a gamble not worth taking,” said Abbie Durkin, the owner of Palmer & Purchase, awomen’s clothing and accessories boutique with stores in New York. “We are fl ying in our entirewinter collection to make sure it arrives before Christmas.”

The Postal Service’s proposal appears to target mail that consistently fails to meet service performance goals and has the most opportunity for improvement. However, the Commission is concerned that the Postal Service did not conduct any operational or pilot testing of its proposed service standard changes. The Commission finds this lack of testing problematic as mail processing is complex and requires timely execution to provide reliable service performance. In addition, the Commission notes that the Postal Service’s estimated annual cost savings for the proposed service standard changes do not indicate much improvement, if any, to the Postal Service’s current financial condition. Rather, the estimated cost savings from extending the service standard would be eliminated by additional costs associated with the growth in packages. Therefore, it is not clear that the tradeoff between financial viability and maintaining high-quality service standards is reasonable. Likewise, the Postal Service concludes that any reduction in First-Class Mail and Periodical volume due to its proposal will be modest, but that conclusion is premised upon analysis of customer satisfaction and demand that relies on numerous unproven assumptions. The Commission encourages the Postal Service to consider the full recommendations outlined in its advisory opinion prior to implementing its plan. The Postal Service should: *Regularly update and publicly communicate realistic targets throughout its implementation *Ensure cost savings are realized but balanced with and not prioritized over maintaining high-quality service standards *Closely monitor the implementation of its plan to determine whether the new potential surface transportation network actually increases efficiency and capacity utilization *Monitor more closely customer satisfaction going forward, particularly for customer and mailer segments that the change may most impact *Be more transparent in the feedback it receives from stakeholders and keep its plan flexible to the needs of customers, stakeholders, and the general public *Not rely upon its filed econometric analysis to estimate the impact of the proposed service changes on volume

L Brands, Inc. announced the appointment of Chief Financial Officers for the standalone Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret businesses. Upon the completion of the spin-off of Victoria’s Secret, which is targeted to occur in August 2021, Wendy Arlin, currently SVP of Finance and Controller for L Brands, will become Bath & Body Works CFO, and Tim Johnson, previously CFO and Chief Administrative Officer for Big Lots, will become Victoria’s Secret CFO. As previously announced, current L Brands CFO Stuart Burgdoerfer will retire at that time.