CAFC Says CBP Liquidation of Furniture Entries Was Timely

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a July 28 opinion held that CBP timely liquidated or reliquidated 10 entries of wooden bedroom furniture. The court ruled that the first unambiguous indication that an injunction against liquidation had ended came from liquidation instructions from the Commerce Department that were sent within the six months prior to liquidation, making the liquidation of the entries timely.

Judges Timothy Dyk, Jimmie Reyna and Kara Stoll ruled that the Court of International Trade was right to find that its opinion in a separate case, which put in place the injunction on the 11 entries under dispute in the present action, did not unambiguously end the injunction, resulting in a finding that CBP timely liqudiated the entries. The judges further held that while one of the entries should have been labeled as being reliquidated since it was deemed liquidated by law, this error was harmless.

The two appellants in the case, Aspects Furniture International (AFI) and IMSS are importers of wooden bedroom furniture. Their entries were subject to the 10th administrative review of the antidumping duty order on the furniture, which imposed a 216.01% China-wide rate. A separate lawsuit at the trade court was launched by plaintiffs led by the American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade (AFCM). The committee's lawsuit imposed an injunction on affected entries, including AFI's 10 entries and IMSS's one. CIT then dismissed the committee's suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

Following the decision, Commerce issued liquidation instructions to CBP, following which, CBP liquidated nine of AFI's entries, while AFI's 10th entry and IMSS's one entry were deemed liquidated. Protests followed, which Customs denied. AFI and IMSS then filed suit at CIT, resulting in the consolidated action before the appellate court. The trade court ruled in 2021 that the date of notice was May 30, 2017 -- the date on which Commerce sent the liquidation instructions, finding that the AFCM decision did not give unambiguous notice that the injunction was lifted.

The appellate court upheld CIT's ruling. At the Federal Circuit, the appellants raised two arguments: CIT erred in finding that there is no genuine dispute of material fact over the date of the notice, and the trade court erred in denying discovery as to when CBP got a copy of the decision dismissing the AFCM decision. The appellate court ruled against the appellants on both fronts. The judges said that the core of the dispute is over whether the AMFC decision gave unambiguous notice of the end of the junction, starting the six-month clock on when liquidation had to take place.

"We conclude that the Court of International Trade correctly determined that its decision in the AFMC litigation did not provide such unambiguous and public notice, and that there is no genuine dispute of fact as to the notice date," the opinion said. Judge Reyna, the author of the decision, ruled that the court has never held that liquidation instructions cannot give the statuorily-required unambiguous and public notice. In a previous opinion, the court rejected the date on which Commerce sent liquidation instructions as the operative date of notice since Commerce's previous publication had already provided notice. In this previous decision, the court did not, as the appellants argued, prevent or require that notice be given in the form of liquidation instructions, the judge said.

"Instead, the relevant event that triggers the date of notice is the first publication of an unambiguous and public notice that then becomes the starting point for the six-month liquidation period, whatever form that may take," Reyna said. CBP timely liquidated the entries, the Federal Circuit said. The court also ruled that no harm was done by CBP failing to label AFI's 10th entry as being reliquidated. "Here, there are no allegations that the notice was deficient in any manner, except for the missing 're' in 'reliquidation,'" the judge said.

(Aspects Furniture International, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2060, -2061, dated 07/28/22, Judges Timothy Dyk, Jimmie Reyna and Kara Stoll. Attorneys: Laura Moya of the Law Offices of Robert W. Snyder for plaintiffs-appellants; Marcella Powell for defendant U.S. government)