The U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) has ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to reliquidate certain previously liquidated entries as part of CAPE Phase 3 implementation within the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
With the deployment scheduled for later this month, to prepare for and benefit from this pending functionality CBP has stated that importers must
- file suit at the CIT
- obtain importer specific court order requiring reliquidation and then
- submit a refund request through CAPE
While importers are not yet required to file suit and administrative protests may continue to support refund claims, recent CIT developments and CBP’s commitment to roll out CAPE Phase 3 by the end of July—initially for court plaintiffs—signal a faster-track refund process for entries liquidated beyond the 80-day mark.
CBP has identified approximately 9,837 refunds that have not yet been transmitted to the U.S. Treasury for disbursement. In many cases, delays are attributed to the absence of Automated Clearing House (ACH) banking information or a designated notification party on file for the Importer of Record (IOR). Importers with potential refund claims are encouraged to verify that their ACH account information and contact details have been properly provided to CBP to facilitate timely refund processing.
The court order can be found here.