In a recent New York Law Journal article, Thompson Coburn partner Robert Shapiro weighed in on the appeal of an order directing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to refund importers for duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
“What customs is saying to the CIT is ‘you issued, essentially, a universal injunction …’ and the Supreme Court said ‘you can’t do that,’” said Robert, chair of Thompson Coburn’s International Trade and Transportation Regulatory practice group. “That’s an open legal question.”
Filing a lawsuit might be the quickest way for importers to recover funds.
Who is more likely to file a suit was top of mind for Robert. He said that the appeal focuses on only one group of importers—those whose imports were fully liquidated when the IEEPA duties were online and who hadn’t filed a case before CIT.
As a whole, that group likely doesn’t account for the bulk of the $166 billion in duties, but “probably most importers are in this boat,” he said.
Robert suspects this group of affected importers include those importing small, low-value shipments. By virtue of being low-value, those shipments would likely have been liquidated immediately. But there’s probably so little money involved that filing a lawsuit wouldn’t make sense, he said.
“There’s going to have to be something to be done about those, or they’re unrecoverable,” said Robert.
Read the full article here.
