Deadline Arrives for Section 301 Status Report, Amicus Briefs

The Aug. 9 deadline has arrived for Section 301 plaintiffs and the government to deliver to the Court of International Trade a joint status report on how the sides are progressing to resolve their disagreements over proposed rules to create a CBP repository for importers to request suspended liquidation of customs entries from China with lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure. The court’s July 6 preliminary injunction order freezing the status of unliquidated entries instructed CBP to have the repository up and running by July 20, but two postponements amid all the disagreements have pushed the deadline back by a month. Chief Judge Mark Barnett used the court’s status conference Aug. 2 to urge the sides to seek the “middle ground” (see 2108020029).

The joint status report ordered for Aug. 9 potentially will add more burden to the court’s already heavy workload for the day. It’s the deadline for plaintiff attorneys in the roughly 3,800 Section 301 complaints to file amicus briefs supporting Akin Gump’s arguments for sample-case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products that the tariffs are unlawful and should be refunded with interest. With an estimated 300 lawyers or more representing the complaints of 6,500 individual importers, the court’s April 13 scheduling order put several ground rules in place to try to keep the amicus filings from getting out of hand. Lawyers must limit each brief to 5,000 words, it said. “Any amicus brief must be limited to the claims raised” in the HMTX-Jasco sample case “and must not repeat arguments already made” by Akin Gump, it said. The scheduling order gave the Department of Justice until Oct. 1 to respond to the briefs, and Akin Gump until Nov. 15 to counter. “The court does not anticipate extending these deadlines absent extraordinary circumstances, which may include an exceptionally large number of amicus briefs presenting distinct arguments,” it said.