The case that Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade had been using to oversee the IEEPA tariff refund process (Atmus Filtration) was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff last week for unspecified reasons. In a March 4 order in Atmus Eaton had directed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to refund all IEEPA tariffs immediately, though he then suspended the immediacy requirement to allow CBP to develop its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries program. CBP has been filing weekly status reports on CAPE and expects to deploy the first phase of the system on April 20.
Because the dismissal of the case occurred before the Department of Justice filed an answer or a summary judgment motion, the judge had no discretion to keep the case alive. As a result, Eaton’s March 4 order—and the Department of Justice’s ability to appeal it—also fell away.
However, the judge moved quickly to keep the refund process on track by lifting the stay on a similar case, Euro Notions Florida Inc. v. U.S. (all cases challenging the IEEPA tariffs had been stayed pending Atmus). He then issued a new order in that case reiterating that “all importers of record whose entries were subject to IEEPA tariffs are entitled to the benefit of” the Supreme Court’s decision overturning those tariffs, signaling universal application. He also reaffirmed that the CIT has exclusive jurisdiction over IEEPA tariff refund claims and that he will be the sole judge assigned to hear them.
The new order directs CBP to provide refunds and to liquidate any and all unliquidated entries. For entries that have been liquidated but are not yet final, CBP must complete liquidation, and where liquidation is final, CBP must reliquidate the entries. The new order also resets to June 6 the deadline for the DOJ to appeal.
In the meantime, CBP has announced that it will launch the first phase of CAPE on April 20. Click here for additional information from CBP.
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