SCOTUS Updates

Yesterday was the Judicial Conference of the U.S. Court of International Trade, which is the biennial meeting of the judges and bar of the Court. There were some very interesting discussions about efforts to harmonize WTO dispute law, Customs seizures, and practice before the Court. Congratulations to the planning committee and the Court of International Trade staff for putting together the program. If you are interested, you can read the papers here.

During the conference, it was announced that the Supreme Court had acted on two petitions for review in Customs cases.

In the first, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Hitachi (see here and here). As a result, Customs has no obligation to decide a protest before the two-year deadline. This means that if an importer wants to force a decision, it has no choice but to use the accelerated disposition process, which might be better termed "accelerated denial."

The Supreme Court also denied certiorari in Alden Leeds (see here and here). This result means that importers must track liquidations, whether deemed or affirmative, if they want to challenge them. The fact that the importer did not see the notice of the liquidation and that there really should not be notice of a deemed liquidation does not relieve the importer of that obligation.

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