**BREAKING NEWS: The Court of International Trade’s Order regarding IEEPA Tariff Refunds issued March 4**
Comments from the Department of Justice earlier this week suggested it might take some time before any additional guidance on IEEPA tariff refunds became available. However, just yesterday the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) issued an order directing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on the next steps.
The order instructs CBP to liquidate any entries that remain unliquidated without collecting IEEPA tariffs. As a result, the duty payments associated with those entries would be refunded once the entries are liquidated—typically around 314 days after the date of entry. Liquidation is the process CBP uses to determine if an entry is final. The CIT’s order identifies two categories of entries: those that remain unliquidated, and those where liquidation is not yet final, which the court defined as entries liquidated within the past 90 days.
This now gives us two buckets of entries which we may need to ‘wait and see’ what next steps will be. Will CBP automatically liquidate these entries without the tariffs, or will importers or their brokers be responsible for updating the entries to remove the duties? Will any action need to be taken on entries where liquidation is not final, or will those automatically re-liquidate?
We expect to learn more following the non-public conference scheduled for tomorrow, March 6, at 10 a.m. There is also a strong likelihood that the U.S. government will appeal the order, which could extend the timeline for any action by CBP—or for any steps the trade community may be able to take.
Things for importers to consider in the meantime:
Entries that have already liquidated are subject to a 180-day protest window. Once that window closes, the entry typically cannot be modified or acted upon further including to request a refund. It is possible that these entries will be addressed in future guidance from the Court of International Trade, and there may be a mechanism for automatic re-liquidation. However, currently, the process remains unclear.
Importers may want to consider filing Protective Protests to preserve their right to seek refunds on any entries where the Protest window is nearing expiration, while we await further guidance from the CIT and CBP. At the same time, it may be prudent to wait a few days to see if additional guidance or instructions are issued before taking further action.
Laufer Group clients can quickly assess their exposure by running a PeerPlus report to check the liquidation status of any entries we have filed on their behalf.
The CIT Judge who issued the order also stated he did not want importers to be required to file a lawsuit to obtain refunds. While the Department of Justice (DOJ) expressed the opposite. So, the need for the ‘belt and suspenders’ approach of filing both lawsuits and Protective Protests, may still have benefits for importers.
The Laufer Group team will continue to monitor these changes and provide updates on any significant developments.
Please contact your local customer service or sales representative for additional information and service options and continue to visit laufer.com for more market Insights.