Ninestar Decries FLETF's Lack of Transparency in Mulling UFLPA Delisting Petition
The Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force failed to undertake a transparent process in considering exporter Ninestar's application for delisting from the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, Ninestar told the Court of International Trade on June 26. Ninestar said FLETF's process was neither "fair, transparent," nor "productive," and led the task force to ignore its obligations and the company's rights under the Administrative Procedure Act (Ninestar Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00182).
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Ninestar initially brought its lawsuit to contest its listing on the UFLPA Entity List, though its case was stayed by the trade court while FLETF considered the company's delisting petition (see 2407300024). On June 23, FLETF its review, issuing a four-sentence conclusion that denied the petition, according to the government's status report to the court.
In a letter to the task force, Ninestar decried FLETF's decision as merely announcing an outcome and completely failing to engage with "thousands of pages of information" submitted by the exporter and "dozens of questions" answered by the company during the task force's review. Ninestar said the result ignores CIT Judge Gary Katzmann's order that FLETF "needs to better explain its listing decisions."
While FLETF's decision was redacted, Ninestar quoted the decision in its letter to the task force, which centered on "three distinct and unsupported grounds for denying Ninestar’s request."
FLETF said Ninestar's "statements and evidence are inconsistent with the information provided by a confidential source," which meant the company failed to persuade the task force the information supporting the initial listing decision "is no longer accurate." Ninestar replied that FLETF "does not explain what information was provided by the confidential source or why the confidential source’s information was deemed more credible than Ninestar’s statements and evidence."
The task force also said Ninestar "fails to assert that it would not accept Uyghur laborers from the [Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region] transferred through labor dispatch agencies via government sponsored labor transfers.” The exporter said the task force never asked the company to "make such an assertion," and that FLETF failed to explain why the lack of such an assertion overrides four pieces of evidence to the contrary.
FLETF lastly said it "obtained additional information that also indicates the record submitted by Ninestar regarding its cooperation with labor dispatch agencies and the recruitment of labor is incomplete, and in some instances, unreliable." The task force "does not explain what information it obtained, the source of that information, or why that information was deemed more credible than Ninestar’s submissions," the exporter said.
Ninestar said it's "shocked" by the decision and urged the task force to provide more information on the delisting petition by July 11 in an effort to avoid further court review.
In a text-only order, Katzmann gave the parties until July 14 to file a proposed order on how to proceed with the case and provide any "further communications" from FLETF, should there be any.