CIT Order Affirms Importance of Filing Protests for IEEPA Tariff Refunds
Source
American Shipper
Post Date
03/24/2026
An order issued March 20 by a Court of International Trade judge affirms that, importers should continue filing timely ?protests of liquidated entries??to protect their right to potential refunds of IEEPA tariffs. Following the Supreme Court? decision overturning tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Court of International Trade directed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to refund IEEPA tariffs to the importers that paid them. In response, CBP has been developing within its Automated Commercial Environment new functionality for submitting and processing refund claims that will be called Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries. In a March 19 to the CIT, CBP said the four components of CAPE were between 45 and 80 percent complete. CBP also noted that testing of some CAPE components has begun and testing of others is anticipated soon but that each component will have to ?o through multiple rounds of critical testing before deployment to the live ACE environment.?
On March 20 CIT Judge Eaton, who is overseeing litigation seeking IEEPA tariff refunds, said progress toward the timely completion of CAPE continues to be ?atisfactory?and directed CBP to provide another status report on March 31. In a noteworthy comment, Eaton also said that because no resolution has yet been reached with respect to the reliquidation of entries that CBP has liquidated as subject to IEEPA tariffs, ?mporters should be aware of the remedies available?under 19 USC 1514 regarding protests against CBP decisions. As a result, importers should continue to monitor the dates of liquidation of their affected entries and file timely protests of any such liquidations with CBP to ensure this potential path of recovery remains available. We continues to believe there is no immediate need for importers to file their own lawsuits at the CIT, though there may be considerations that support such a decision. Importers should also ensure they have completed the set-up process to receive refunds from CBP electronically.
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