Liquidation, Again

The liquidation issues just keep rolling out of the Court of International Trade. I just read Mukand Int'l Ltd. It is yet another example of an importer in a dumping case losing its opportunity to challenge the determination because the entries liquidated. Without an injunction, entries may liquidate and the case will be mooted out. I blogged about this recently.

The importer had a decent argument that Commerce issued liquidation instructions too early. This was based on another case holding--apparently--that Commerce has to wait long enough to give the importer a chance to file a summons and complaint before issuing liquidation instructions. The problem for the importer in this cases was that it did not get around to requesting an injunction until after the date suggested in the previous case. So, even if that were the law (and it is not clear to me that it is), the importer requested the injunction too late.

Two interesting things about the case. First, Judge Gordon made what amounts to an affirmative policy suggestion to Commerce to avoid the problems in the future. That is unusual and it will be interesting to see whether Commerce changes its current policy of issuing instructions within 15 days of the final result.

Second, Judge Gordon agreed with my recent comment that Congress should fix this problem (see page 9). By itself, that is not interesting. What is interesting is the fact that he failed to cite my blog which is the clear and obvious antecedent to his decision. I am shocked.

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