Some of you may recall that the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) announced on July 6, 2021 that it will halt the liquidation of unliquidated entries subject to Section 301 tariffs in wake of the thousands of plaintiffs who filed lawsuits targeting the legality of List 3 and List 4 tariffs on Chinese goods.

The lawsuit, originally filed in September 2020, alleged that List 3 and List 4 tariffs were imposed untimely and were created to retaliate against Chinese tariff measures, rather than to remedy China’s unfair trade practices or intellectual property policies. It also claimed that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) when imposing the duty, making the acts invalid.

In its preliminary injunction (PI) order issued on July 6, most of the judges on the CIT panel said that in order “to give the parties time to implement appropriate procedures, gather pertinent information, and otherwise take necessary action to comply with this order, the court will temporarily restrain liquidation of any unliquidated entries of merchandise imported from China by any plaintiffs in the Section 301 Cases which are subject to List 3 or List 4A duties provided specific information was provided.

Furthermore, they advised that each plaintiff had until August 6, 2021, to submit this information to a “repository” that CBP will establish and maintain, but were unable to provide any details of the repository (such as who would have access; how the information should be submitted for past and future entries).

Yesterday, the Court of International Trade (CIT) announced a two-week postponement to its August 6th deadline for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to create this repository in an effort to give plaintiffs and government officials more time to modify to the PI order and provide additional clarification to the process.

Shapiro will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available.

If you have any questions related to List 3 and 4A tariffs, please contact [email protected].