Plaintiffs Reserve Right to Oppose US' Inadvertent Liquidations in Solar Panel Tariff Exclusion Case
Plaintiffs in a case challenging President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw a tariff exclusion for bifacial solar panels reserved all their rights to the extent that the plaintiffs are affected by the U.S.'s inadvertent liquidations of the entries at issue in the action, the plaintiffs said in a Sept. 13 reply brief. The reserved rights include, but are not limited to, "opposing the Government’s actions and legal authority to void liquidations without court approval and without providing specificity that would allow for meaningful comment, the brief said (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, CIT #20-03941).
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The trade court suspended liquidation of the relevant entries after it struck down the tariff exclusion withdrawal, finding the withdrawal to be a clear misconstruction of the law since the relevant law only permits trade liberalizing alterations to existing safeguard measures (see 2111160032). After the ruling, the plaintiffs, led by the Solar Energy Industries Association, filed the unopposed motion for an order suspending liquidation, urging the court to halt liquidation until all appeals are final.
The U.S. then told CIT that it inadvertently liquidated entries in violation of the injunction (see 2208120055). However, the government gave no list of the entries at issue but generally laid out buckets of an unknown amount of entries made during certain time periods for which the U.S. has or may void liquidations. The U.S. said the plaintiffs were not affected by the liquidations. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs filed their response to say they reserve their rights to reply to the U.S.'s actions and oppose its authority to void liquidations without court approval. "The Notice also cannot be read to limit or otherwise affect non-party importers’ rights and remedies under the law," the brief said.