Customs Law

[UPDATE: Sometimes, Congress fixes things. That is the case here. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 includes, at § 911 a fix for the issue discussed in this post. The relevant amendment changes the existing law "by striking 'on which notice of the original liquidation is given or transmitted to the importer, his consignee or agent' and inserting 'of the original liquidation'.” This should make the relevant date the date on which the deemed liquidation occurs, not the date of notice, which is how it should be (if you ask me).] The second recent case from the Court of International Trade involves the deemed liquidation of an entry. It is United States v. Great American Insurance Company of New York . This is a collection case in which the United States is seeking $50,000 from a surety for unpaid antidumping duties, plus pre-judgment and post-judgment interest. For purposes of my own time management, I am just going to give you the take-aw

Interesting court decisions are piling up. The first is American Power Pull Corp. v. United States . This case involves two entries of hand trucks from China, which are subject to an antidumping duty order. At the time of entry, the importer deposited 26.49% of the value of the merchandise as a dumping duty deposit and Customs issued a notice of suspension of liquidation. A periodic review covering the entries followed and Customs continued the suspension of liquidation. After the review, and no doubt much to the disappointment of the plaintiff, the assessment rate was set at 383.60%. The producer filed suit to challenge that determination, no doubt making the plaintiff in this case happy. The Court granted an injunction against liquidation of the entry. Eventually, the rate was reduced to 145.90% and Commerce issued liquidation instructions to Customs and Border Protection. When CBP liquidated the entries with the additional assessment, American Power Pull protested, asserting that 

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I'm going to do this one quickly because I am busy and the case is straightforward, but still an important lesson. In Design International Group v. United States , the Court of International Trade reaffirmed the rule that an importer may only file one protest contesting the liquidation of an entry. In the case, the importer made two entries of pencils. When Customs liquidated the entries, it allegedly miscalculated the quantity and, as a result, incorrectly assessed duty. The broker for the importer filed protests for each entry. That right there is one protest per entry. Customs denied both entries. Subsequently, counsel for the importer filed a third protest challenging the denial of both prior protests. That is a second protest challenging the liquidation of each of the entries. When Customs and Border Protection denied that third protest, the importer filed suit in the Court of International Trade, using the third denied protest as the basis for jurisdiction. What do you