[00:00:00] Speaker 02:
We have four argued cases this morning.

[00:00:03] Speaker 02:
The first one is number 21, 2060, Aspects Furniture International versus United States.

[00:00:10] Speaker 02:
Ms.

[00:00:10] Speaker 02:
Moya.

[00:00:15] Speaker 04:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court.

[00:00:18] Speaker 04:
For the record, my name is Laura Moya.

[00:00:20] Speaker 04:
I am with the law offices of Robert W. Snyder, and I am appearing today on behalf of Consolidated Plaintiffs' Appellants.

[00:00:27] Speaker 04:
Aspects Furniture International Inc.

[00:00:29] Speaker 04:
and IMSS LLC in Consolidated Court Number 21-2060.

[00:00:35] Speaker 04:
This case involves U.S.

[00:00:37] Speaker 04:
Customs and Border Protections untimely liquidations of ten entries of wooden bedroom furniture of Chinese origin imported by AFI in 2014 and one entry reliquidated by U.S.

[00:00:52] Speaker 04:
Customs and Border Protection.

[00:00:53] Speaker 01:
On the notice issue, just jumping into the issues.

[00:00:56] Speaker 01:
On the notice issue, how do you deal with Fujitsu, which seems to suggest that issuance of a decision or receipt of a decision, a court decision, isn't necessarily going to constitute notice?

[00:01:14] Speaker 01:
Because it has to be unambiguous.

[00:01:16] Speaker 04:
So we believe there are two main differences between the facts underlying Fujitsu and the facts present here.

[00:01:26] Speaker 04:
One of them being that the decision in the Fujitsu case was a decision not in harmony with the Department of Commerce's final results, which is the Timken situation contemplated under 1516 AE.

[00:01:40] Speaker 04:
Whereas in this case, the underlying court decision, the one issued by the CIT and the AFMC,

[00:01:46] Speaker 04:
a case, court number 16-70.

[00:01:52] Speaker 04:
It was a decision in harmony with the Department of Commerce results, meaning that the court didn't change anything.

[00:01:59] Speaker 04:
What does that make a difference?

[00:02:00] Speaker 04:
Well, we believe that the statute makes a difference in that respect.

[00:02:05] Speaker 01:
But the opinion didn't say anything about suspension or lifting of the suspension, right?

[00:02:10] Speaker 01:
It said nothing about it.

[00:02:11] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:02:12] Speaker 01:
And on that matter... So how would somebody know then?

[00:02:15] Speaker 01:
that opinion was lifting the suspension?

[00:02:19] Speaker 04:
On that matter, we believe that the court in international trading, this court in international trading, addressed that issue.

[00:02:27] Speaker 04:
And it actually, it stated that even though, okay, yeah.

[00:02:36] Speaker 04:
So, actually, infujitsu, I'm sorry.

[00:02:39] Speaker 04:
The court infujitsu held that publication of notice of the decision in the case met the requirements of 1504D, despite the fact that neither the court decision nor commerce, the Commerce Federal Register notice specifically mentioned suspension.

[00:02:54] Speaker 04:
And this is at 283 F 1383.

[00:02:57] Speaker 01:
You're saying the decision in this case specifically mentioned suspension?

[00:03:04] Speaker 04:
No, it did not.

[00:03:05] Speaker 04:
But I'm saying that the court in Fujitsu held that that was not a requirement.

[00:03:09] Speaker 04:
First and foremost, the statute doesn't require that, the deemed liquidation statute.

[00:03:14] Speaker 04:
And there have been numerous opinions by this court as well that have held that... Actually, what the court in Fujitsu says, it says that

[00:03:28] Speaker 01:
Fujitsu General does not even mention the suspension of liquidation that was ordered by the CIT.

[00:03:34] Speaker 01:
We do not think it would be consistent with the statutory scheme to hold the cop Palmer's publication of notice of a court decision and customs receipt of notice are synonymous for purposes of a six month time period.

[00:03:47] Speaker 01:
How is that supporting you?

[00:03:53] Speaker 04:
If I may just regroup for a second.

[00:04:07] Speaker 04:
In that case, the court was comparing the publication of the final results and the Federal Register by the Department of Commerce and the liquidation instructions, and it held that the publication

[00:04:37] Speaker 01:
The decision was not sufficient in Fujitsu to constitute that.

[00:04:47] Speaker 02:
My understanding of your argument here is that you would like discovery to see whether customs was served with the decision on or about May 12th, which potentially would

[00:05:03] Speaker 02:
reduce the time available for liquidation by Congress.

[00:05:08] Speaker 02:
But the fact is that even if customers have been served by the May 12th decision, the May 12th decision doesn't tell you when the stay expired, right?

[00:05:19] Speaker 04:
It doesn't, but this is not a requirement under the statute.

[00:05:23] Speaker 02:
That's the problem.

[00:05:23] Speaker 02:
So even if they've been served with a decision reading it, you couldn't necessarily tell on the face of the decision that the stay had expired.

[00:05:30] Speaker 04:
Right, but even the quote

[00:05:33] Speaker 04:
from Fujitsu that does not say that that is one requirement.

[00:05:37] Speaker 04:
It just stated that for the facts present in Fujitsu.

[00:05:42] Speaker 03:
Why don't you explain why it makes a difference to you as to what the date of the notice is?

[00:05:49] Speaker 03:
Is it really that you want this to go back from discovery or does this alter whether certain of the entries were deemed liquidated?

[00:06:01] Speaker 04:
I guess just to take a step back, what we believe is that in this particular case, it was the court that provided the notice.

[00:06:10] Speaker 04:
And the lower court did not want to entertain that aspect and figure out whether indeed the court had provided that notice.

[00:06:22] Speaker 04:
And it was the court, I believe, in international trading, this court in international trading, that contemplated the fact that

[00:06:29] Speaker 04:
the court, as the statute provides, could provide notice.

[00:06:32] Speaker 03:
You're challenging the date of issuance or the date of notice on the CIT's opinion, correct?

[00:06:40] Speaker 03:
Why does it make a difference to you?

[00:06:42] Speaker 03:
You responded to Judge Dyck's question concerning discovery.

[00:06:46] Speaker 03:
You want more discovery?

[00:06:48] Speaker 04:
In particular, just with respect to whether the AFMC opinion was served

[00:06:54] Speaker 04:
on customs, yes.

[00:06:58] Speaker 04:
And this is because we understand that this court's president to require a separate mechanism.

[00:07:02] Speaker 03:
More discovery as to what?

[00:07:03] Speaker 04:
As to whether the decision was served on customs or not.

[00:07:06] Speaker 04:
The president in Fujitsu, I believe... Why does it make a difference to you?

[00:07:13] Speaker 04:
Because this court president requires that a court give notice through a separate mechanism.

[00:07:19] Speaker 01:
And that is the aspect that was missing in this case, the separate mechanism.

[00:07:23] Speaker 01:
I just want to make sure you understand the question.

[00:07:25] Speaker 01:
The question is, why do you care about the date of when notice was received?

[00:07:31] Speaker 01:
What impact does that have on your client?

[00:07:33] Speaker 04:
Well, that starts the six month liquidation timeline for customs.

[00:07:38] Speaker 01:
And if the liquidation doesn't occur within six months, then what happens?

[00:07:42] Speaker 04:
Then the consequence is deemed liquidation.

[00:07:44] Speaker 04:
The entry is deemed liquidated as a duty.

[00:07:46] Speaker 01:
As a duty that you indicated.

[00:07:48] Speaker 04:
Yes, as entered.

[00:07:50] Speaker 02:
Well, if it was served on May 12th or May 13th, the liquidation would have been untimely.

[00:07:56] Speaker 04:
Right, oh yeah, right.

[00:07:59] Speaker 02:
But they could still, and this relates to the entry number 10, they could still have reliquidated

[00:08:06] Speaker 02:
That is the second issue.

[00:08:08] Speaker 04:
That is the second part of the court's decision that we take issue with, particularly with respect to A-5's tension.

[00:08:14] Speaker 02:
It's related to the first part, too, because even if you were to prevail on the notion that they received notice on or about May 12th, the customs could still have reliquidated.

[00:08:27] Speaker 04:
Right, but it didn't do so in this case.

[00:08:30] Speaker 02:
Well, that's the question.

[00:08:31] Speaker 02:
That would be a harmless error.

[00:08:33] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:08:33] Speaker 04:
And we take issue with the court's decision in that particular aspect as well for two main reasons, if I may proceed with that.

[00:08:44] Speaker 01:
How is your client harmed?

[00:08:45] Speaker 01:
Please do proceed, but I specifically want to know in what way you think your client is prejudiced.

[00:08:50] Speaker 04:
So the court held that

[00:08:54] Speaker 04:
our client failed to uh... established prejudice but uh... pursuant to injure cargo prejudice uh... for purposes of harmless error means injury to an interest at the statute regulation or rule was designed to protect it's here the prejudice here uh... was uh... not providing uh... basically not respecting the statutes yeah but what would you have done you would have protested but you not identified any ground for protest certainly but it there is a difference between protesting

[00:09:23] Speaker 04:
a liquidation and a reliquidation, they are different legal constructions.

[00:09:28] Speaker 04:
They have different requirements.

[00:09:29] Speaker 02:
How could you have known?

[00:09:31] Speaker 02:
Suppose that they had actually reliquidated and you protested that.

[00:09:37] Speaker 02:
Let's talk about entry number 10.

[00:09:40] Speaker 02:
How could you have succeeded in challenging the reliquidation?

[00:09:45] Speaker 04:
Well, if that had been an actual reliquidation, there is a chance we might not have protested that.

[00:09:50] Speaker 04:
Or we would have protested it from a notice perspective, for example, because 1501 contains a notice requirement in order for the reliquidation to produce effects, to be a valid reliquidation.

[00:10:02] Speaker 02:
My hypothetical is, assuming there was a reliquidation, and they gave you notice that it was a reliquidation, what remedy would your client have had under those circumstances?

[00:10:15] Speaker 04:
I mean, I feel like this hypothetical is going a little too far in the sense that we don't have notice, though.

[00:10:26] Speaker 01:
What would you have done differently?

[00:10:27] Speaker 01:
Had you had notice, what would you have done differently?

[00:10:32] Speaker 04:
We would have re-evaluated the situation probably.

[00:10:35] Speaker 04:
We were working with a different record up until the point when the court to us wanting raised this issue.

[00:10:44] Speaker 03:
The court below said it would have made no difference to you, regardless of which notice went into effect or became effective, whether it was a CIT opinion or the notice from Commerce to Customs.

[00:10:57] Speaker 03:
The CIT said it would have made no difference.

[00:11:01] Speaker 03:
with respect to your deemed liquidation wish.

[00:11:06] Speaker 03:
Explain to me why the court was wrong in that.

[00:11:10] Speaker 04:
We believe that the court ignored basically the plain language of the statute.

[00:11:16] Speaker 04:
1501 states that customs is allowed to perform voluntary liquidation is not.

[00:11:23] Speaker 03:
Excuse me.

[00:11:24] Speaker 03:
Do you understand what I'm saying?

[00:11:25] Speaker 03:
That the court said it would have made no difference to the ultimate

[00:11:30] Speaker 03:
a decision on what was deemed liquidated or not, it would have made no difference regardless of which date you select.

[00:11:39] Speaker 03:
And explain to me why the court was wrong in that.

[00:11:42] Speaker 04:
Well, it did make a difference because this makes Customs December 1st event timely, likely.

[00:11:48] Speaker 04:
Whereas if the record were to be respected, Customs event on December 1st would have been deemed untimely under 1504D.

[00:12:00] Speaker 01:
Is there something different about the process of liquidating versus reliquidating that makes it so it matters what label they use?

[00:12:11] Speaker 04:
Reliquidation is supposed to correct some aspect of liquidation, whether it is the rate or the fact that a liquidation is untimely.

[00:12:20] Speaker 04:
In this case, that's what should have happened.

[00:12:22] Speaker 01:
But there was deemed liquidation.

[00:12:25] Speaker 01:
You think there was deemed liquidation on a particular date, and then the government reliquidates, but they call it liquidation.

[00:12:33] Speaker 04:
They did not liquidate, though.

[00:12:35] Speaker 04:
They really liquidated.

[00:12:35] Speaker 04:
They liquidated.

[00:12:37] Speaker 04:
And that was posted December 1st.

[00:12:39] Speaker 04:
It was posted untimely.

[00:12:41] Speaker 04:
It's in a way, the order in which these events take place, it's somewhat

[00:12:49] Speaker 04:
hard to grasp because deemed liquidation is such an abstract concept.

[00:12:55] Speaker 04:
So it requires customs to not liquidate at all within the six months or to liquidate untimely, which is what happened here.

[00:13:05] Speaker 04:
You become aware of deemed liquidation only when you look back in time.

[00:13:08] Speaker 03:
The statute puts a burden on customs to determine a protest within six months.

[00:13:15] Speaker 03:
And if they do not decide the protest within six months, then those entries are deemed liquidated.

[00:13:21] Speaker 03:
That's what you would like to, that's where you're headed here.

[00:13:23] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:13:24] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:13:24] Speaker 03:
You want to get to the point where these entries are deemed liquidated and you're arguing that those six months is based on when an effective notice was given.

[00:13:37] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:13:37] Speaker 03:
The court of international trade said it makes no difference whether you take this date or that date

[00:13:44] Speaker 03:
with respect to whether those those entries are going to be deemed liquidated.

[00:13:51] Speaker 03:
What is wrong with that decision?

[00:13:52] Speaker 03:
Why is that wrong?

[00:13:54] Speaker 04:
Well, the court said so because it decided to apply the harmless error rule to salvage these dim liquidations.

[00:14:04] Speaker 04:
And we believe that that rule does not apply to the entries here for two main reasons.

[00:14:10] Speaker 04:
The first one being that it should be applied to 1504D

[00:14:14] Speaker 04:
not 1501, because it should be applied to what customs did, which was liquidation.

[00:14:20] Speaker 04:
And second, even if we were to assume that, OK, it was a reliquidation in practice, even though the record clearly doesn't support that, it actually contradicts that this is what happened in practice, we have pointed to quite a few cases in our reply brief that

[00:14:40] Speaker 04:
Do not support the courts.

[00:14:41] Speaker 04:
We believe do not support the courts.

[00:14:43] Speaker 02:
You're almost out of time.

[00:14:44] Speaker 02:
I've got one more question.

[00:14:46] Speaker 02:
And that is, let's assume that we were to agree with you that the entries, all the entries where the liquidation was untimely.

[00:14:59] Speaker 02:
Is the same situation with respect to prejudice exist with respect to the entries other than

[00:15:07] Speaker 02:
item 10 as exists with respect to item 10?

[00:15:12] Speaker 04:
Yes, we believe there is no difference to be made between them.

[00:15:15] Speaker 04:
In the case of all the 10 entries, what customs did in practice was a liquidation.

[00:15:21] Speaker 04:
That is governed by 1504D.

[00:15:23] Speaker 04:
Therefore, the court's harmless error analysis should have been made with respect to 1504D.

[00:15:29] Speaker 04:
And had the court done that, the argument would have gone nowhere because that statute

[00:15:34] Speaker 04:
everybody agreed it's undisputed is not subject to a harmless error analysis.

[00:15:38] Speaker 02:
Unless my colleagues have further questions at this time we're out of time.

[00:15:43] Speaker 02:
We'll give you two minutes for rebuttal and we'll hear from Ms.

[00:15:46] Speaker 02:
Powell.

[00:15:48] Speaker 00:
Good morning.

[00:15:49] Speaker 00:
May it please the court.

[00:15:51] Speaker 00:
The trial court's decision denying appellants request for discovery is correct.

[00:15:57] Speaker 00:
As this court mentioned, the Fujitsu case clearly states that

[00:16:03] Speaker 00:
service.

[00:16:03] Speaker 00:
In that case, service was attempted, was actually made on DOJ, and the court held that that service was incorrect to provide notice to customs.

[00:16:12] Speaker 00:
In this case, in the AFMC case, customs wasn't a party to that case, and commerce was a party.

[00:16:19] Speaker 00:
So even if the court served notice to customs, it wouldn't provide, excuse me, even if the court provided

[00:16:30] Speaker 00:
the AFMC decision to customs, it wouldn't provide notice.

[00:16:36] Speaker 00:
Number one, the decision did not mention liquidation and liquidation suspension at all.

[00:16:42] Speaker 00:
It didn't mention the lifting of the suspension.

[00:16:46] Speaker 00:
It didn't even mention the adjunction.

[00:16:47] Speaker 00:
The actual decision is a jurisdictional decision.

[00:16:51] Speaker 00:
It didn't even mention the merits.

[00:16:53] Speaker 00:
So if that decision was served on customs, there's nothing in that decision that would let customs know that the suspension had been lifted.

[00:17:02] Speaker 01:
Does it also include when it had been lifted?

[00:17:05] Speaker 01:
If it had been lifted, there's no indication of when?

[00:17:09] Speaker 00:
The decision itself doesn't state anything about suspending or suspension of entries or its injunction.

[00:17:15] Speaker 02:
You'd have to read it together with the earlier order to get the point.

[00:17:18] Speaker 00:
If you read the decision together with the order,

[00:17:23] Speaker 00:
order and the injunction.

[00:17:25] Speaker 00:
So it's three.

[00:17:25] Speaker 00:
It's the decision, the order, and the injunction.

[00:17:28] Speaker 00:
The injunction itself tells you when it expires.

[00:17:31] Speaker 00:
It expires on May 12th, just by its own language.

[00:17:34] Speaker 00:
So if you're going to read them, you read them all three together.

[00:17:36] Speaker 00:
But even in that sense, in this case, the decision itself wasn't final until May 12th.

[00:17:43] Speaker 00:
And if you serve the decision on customs, as a matter of law, it couldn't have served on its own as notice.

[00:17:49] Speaker 02:
Okay, now what about entry number 10, which was admittedly untimely in the harmless error analysis?

[00:17:56] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:17:58] Speaker 00:
We submit in terms of harmless error that the court was correct.

[00:18:03] Speaker 00:
Number one, appellant claims that it did not get notice.

[00:18:07] Speaker 00:
It did receive notice.

[00:18:09] Speaker 00:
And that notice is in the record.

[00:18:11] Speaker 00:
And I believe it is 504.

[00:18:15] Speaker 00:
So on that instance, we submit that appellant did get notice.

[00:18:20] Speaker 00:
That notice actually had the date that it was posted.

[00:18:24] Speaker 00:
It actually informed.

[00:18:26] Speaker 00:
the appellant that there was a change, meaning an increase in the duties, it says change, increase.

[00:18:32] Speaker 00:
So in terms of harmless error, the notice that they had, even though it says liquidation, provided all the information that the appellant needed to protest.

[00:18:42] Speaker 00:
So here, even though customs called it a liquidation, in reality, it's functionally the same.

[00:18:51] Speaker 00:
It's equivalent to a reliquidation.

[00:18:54] Speaker 02:
I'm a little troubled by the notion that if in the situation with respect to item number 10, if there had been a legitimate ground for protest and they had not protested because they thought the liquidation was untimely and they didn't view it as being the equivalent of a reliquidation, then there would be in that circumstance prejudice, wouldn't there?

[00:19:20] Speaker 00:
If the appellant didn't

[00:19:23] Speaker 02:
If the appellant had a good ground for protest and had not received notice that this was a reliquidation, there would be a claim that the arrow was harmful, right?

[00:19:40] Speaker 00:
No, because in this case, whether it's a reliquidation or a liquidation... No, I'm not talking about this case.

[00:19:46] Speaker 02:
I'm talking about a hypothetical case in which there is a protest which would have some merit to it.

[00:19:52] Speaker 02:
If there was a potential for a meritorious protest, it would be harmful error not to give notice that this was a reliquidation rather than a liquidation, right?

[00:20:04] Speaker 00:
Yes, if the facts were different.

[00:20:06] Speaker 00:
And there could be a set of facts where on the reliquidation custom did something different, like added interest or something that was different from the reliquidation.

[00:20:15] Speaker 00:
So the notice would let the importer know, oh, there's something different going on than the reliquidation.

[00:20:21] Speaker 00:
Here, what happened in this case is that plaintiff received a notice and filed a protest.

[00:20:29] Speaker 00:
That protest means that this liquidation is open.

[00:20:32] Speaker 00:
You can bring any argument relating to that liquidation.

[00:20:36] Speaker 00:
And we are here arguing reliquidation and arguing whether there's a deemed liquidation.

[00:20:41] Speaker 00:
So here, there was no protest.

[00:20:43] Speaker 00:
Even if this notice said reliquidation, they would have still protested.

[00:20:48] Speaker 02:
It's not just that there wasn't a protest, though they haven't identified a ground for protest.

[00:20:53] Speaker 02:
They haven't identified anything they would have done differently.

[00:20:56] Speaker 00:
Yes, that's the point I'm making.

[00:20:59] Speaker 00:
They haven't identified anything that they would have done differently.

[00:21:02] Speaker 00:
On this case, the liquidation is open.

[00:21:05] Speaker 00:
And we are arguing here the reliquidation issue.

[00:21:08] Speaker 00:
We're arguing the deemed liquidation issue.

[00:21:10] Speaker 00:
We're arguing all the issues relating to all the decisions that went into customs' assessment of duties.

[00:21:18] Speaker 00:
So there is no prejudice.

[00:21:20] Speaker 00:
This is their day in court.

[00:21:21] Speaker 00:
They had it below.

[00:21:23] Speaker 00:
There's no prejudice here.

[00:21:31] Speaker 02:
Anything further?

[00:21:33] Speaker 00:
I just wanted to mention back to on the notice issue.

[00:21:39] Speaker 00:
I just wanted to sort of make it a little bit, because I think the parties sort of left it where there wasn't any discovery on notice.

[00:21:45] Speaker 00:
Actually, this is a consolidated case, and there was discovery on notice.

[00:21:49] Speaker 00:
If you look back into the record, the issue really with the discovery was about the May 30th liquidation instructions.

[00:21:57] Speaker 00:
and how those came into being.

[00:21:59] Speaker 00:
So it's not like the court didn't give the plaintiff or the appellant any discovery.

[00:22:04] Speaker 00:
They had discovery.

[00:22:06] Speaker 00:
It's just that here the court felt that once it looked at all the facts, discovery wasn't necessary.

[00:22:14] Speaker 02:
about whether the May 12th decision had been served?

[00:22:17] Speaker 00:
Yes, they did ask for that discovery.

[00:22:18] Speaker 02:
And they didn't get that, right?

[00:22:20] Speaker 00:
They didn't because the court had already, the court had determined there's no circumstance that that decision, the service of that decision alone could constitute notice as a matter of law.

[00:22:33] Speaker 00:
And they haven't

[00:22:35] Speaker 00:
established it in their brief and not at this whole argument.

[00:22:38] Speaker 00:
It's missing the unambiguous aspect that Fujitsu and actually CMAX actually requires.

[00:22:45] Speaker 00:
So even if under the best circumstances, Customs was served.

[00:22:50] Speaker 00:
And again, there's no case law stating that service by the court on Customs constitutes notice of removal of suspension.

[00:22:58] Speaker 00:
But even under those circumstances, that decision alone wouldn't as a matter of law constitute notice.

[00:23:06] Speaker 03:
But there are instances where a court opinion can be unambiguous and provide that type of notice, right?

[00:23:12] Speaker 00:
Oh, absolutely.

[00:23:13] Speaker 00:
I believe a court can have a decision that's fairly comprehensive.

[00:23:16] Speaker 00:
In this court, it was a jurisdictional decision.

[00:23:20] Speaker 00:
So the issues in the decision itself just related to jurisdiction.

[00:23:24] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:23:28] Speaker 00:
Anything further?

[00:23:30] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor.

[00:23:31] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:23:33] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:23:33] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Ms.

[00:23:33] Speaker 02:
Boyle.

[00:23:34] Speaker 02:
Ms.

[00:23:34] Speaker 02:
Boyle, you've got two minutes.

[00:23:37] Speaker 04:
Thank you for the additional time.

[00:23:38] Speaker 04:
Appreciate that.

[00:23:40] Speaker 04:
I would like to go back to the government's argument that in Fujitsu, the service wasn't valid because Customs wasn't a party to that lawsuit.

[00:23:52] Speaker 04:
In fact, CBP was represented by counsel at the hearing that the court held before issuing its decision.

[00:24:00] Speaker 04:
I believe that is even in the decision itself.

[00:24:04] Speaker 04:
So, Customs had

[00:24:07] Speaker 04:
its own counsel present there, because it is the practice of customs counsel to be a part of the team, of the defense team in cases like this.

[00:24:16] Speaker 02:
The other aspect that I would like to touch on- Even though customs wasn't a party to the case, its lawyer was there?

[00:24:22] Speaker 04:
Yes, they work as a counsel on these kinds of cases, because both commerce and customs have an interest in these types of cases.

[00:24:34] Speaker 04:
The other aspect is that even though the AFMC decision didn't mention anything about the removal of suspension, it was an unambiguous decision.

[00:24:43] Speaker 04:
The court, on several notes, it noted that the duty rate, the final duty rate, that the Chinese exporter that was under review, it remained the same.

[00:24:58] Speaker 04:
And it actually, in its conclusion, which was very important, we believe,

[00:25:04] Speaker 04:
The court said that the final results were effectively not challenged in the AFMC action.

[00:25:11] Speaker 04:
So we think that under this court's precedent, the reasonable CBP official standard has been developed to work with these kinds of situations where a court provides a notice, or at least to

[00:25:28] Speaker 04:
to help the courts in finally finding a situation where the court provides notice.

[00:25:33] Speaker 04:
And in this case, we believe that the decision in the AFMC was the separate mechanism that the International Trading Court contemplated.

[00:25:46] Speaker 04:
And it was unambiguous because it clearly stated that the final duty rate was unchanged

[00:25:53] Speaker 04:
So we believe that May 12 is the applicable date based on the court providing notice.

[00:25:59] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:25:59] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Ms.

[00:26:00] Speaker 02:
Boyan.

[00:26:00] Speaker 02:
We're out of time.

[00:26:01] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:26:02] Speaker 02:
May 12th, counsel.

[00:26:02] Speaker 02:
The case is submitted.