CUSTOMS LITIGATION | 2026-09-06

Antidumping and Countervailing Duty (AD/CVD) Entries and the IEEPA Tariff Refund: CIT Oral Argument Set for September 15, 2026

The Court of International Trade will hear argument on whether importers whose entries carried both antidumping and countervailing duties and the invalidated IEEPA tariffs can recover the IEEPA portion. California importers of chemicals and industrial goods face a distinct refund puzzle.

When the U.S. Supreme Court held on February 20, 2026 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs, California importers began asking a practical question: how do we get our money back? For a large category of merchandise subject to antidumping and countervailing duties, the answer is far less clear, and it now sits before the Court of International Trade with oral argument set for September 15, 2026.

The Supreme Court's IEEPA Ruling and the Refund Question It Left Open

On February 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, consolidated with Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., Nos. 24-1287 and 25-250. By a vote of 6-3, in an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., the Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, codified at 50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. That holding invalidated two major tariff programs: the April 2025 "reciprocal" tariffs, widely described as the "Liberation Day" tariffs, and the separate trafficking and immigration tariffs commonly called the "fentanyl" tariffs. For California importers who had been paying these tariffs on nearly every entry, the decision was a landmark. It confirmed that the duties they had remitted were collected without lawful authority.

A decision that tariffs were unlawfully imposed is not the same thing as a check in the mail. The ruling settled the legal authority question, but it did not create a single, automatic refund mechanism that reaches every importer and every entry. Instead, recovery depends on the procedural posture of each entry: how it was filed, whether and when it liquidated, whether the importer preserved its rights, and whether the entry falls within the ordinary refund process or one of the special categories the customs laws treat differently. The gap between "the tariff was unlawful" and "the refund has been paid" is where most of the current litigation and administrative activity is concentrated.

What the ruling invalidated, and what it did not

It is essential to separate the tariffs the ruling reached from those it did not. The decision addressed only tariffs imposed under IEEPA. It did not touch tariffs imposed under other statutory authorities. In particular, tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, codified at 19 U.S.C. 1862, and tariffs imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, codified at 19 U.S.C. 2411, remain fully in force. These programs rest on separate statutory frameworks with their own procedures, and the Supreme Court's IEEPA holding does not disturb them. California importers should not assume that steel, aluminum, or China-origin Section 301 duties are refundable because of this ruling; they are not.

Why the refund path is not uniform

The customs laws assess and finalize duties through a process called liquidation, the point at which Customs and Border Protection fixes the final amount of duty owed on an entry. Ordinary entries liquidate on a predictable schedule, and the refund tools available to importers are keyed to that liquidation timing. Because different categories of merchandise liquidate on different schedules, and because some categories do not liquidate for years, a single refund rule cannot fit every entry. The result is that the practical path to an IEEPA refund varies dramatically depending on the type of entry, and no category illustrates that better than merchandise subject to antidumping and countervailing duties.

Why this matters to California businesses now

California is one of the largest gateways for imported goods in the United States, and its importers of chemicals and industrial inputs frequently deal with merchandise covered by antidumping or countervailing duty orders. Many of these companies paid IEEPA tariffs on top of their antidumping or countervailing duties during the period the IEEPA programs were in effect. For them, the general refund framework does not neatly apply, and the question the Court of International Trade will hear in September directly governs whether and how they recover. Understanding the mechanics is the first step in protecting the claim.

Why Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Entries Are Different

Antidumping and countervailing duties exist under Title VII of the Tariff Act of 1930. Countervailing duties, which offset foreign government subsidies, are governed by 19 U.S.C. 1671. Antidumping duties, which address the sale of imported merchandise at less than fair value, are governed by 19 U.S.C. 1673. These are trade remedy duties, and they are administered through a two-agency process that is fundamentally different from the way ordinary customs duties are handled. That structural difference is precisely what makes IEEPA refunds on AD/CVD entries so complicated.

The role of the Department of Commerce

Unlike ordinary customs duties, which Customs and Border Protection assesses directly, antidumping and countervailing duty rates are set by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Commerce establishes the duty rates, conducts investigations, and administers ongoing reviews of the orders. Critically, the rate that an importer pays at the time of entry is not necessarily the final rate. Commerce revisits the applicable rates through an annual administrative-review process under 19 U.S.C. 1675, in which it reexamines the pricing and subsidy behavior of exporters and producers over a defined review period and calculates final assessment rates. Only after Commerce completes that review and issues instructions does Customs and Border Protection know the final duty to assess.

Cash deposits versus final assessed duties

Because the final rate is unknown at entry, antidumping and countervailing duty entries are made with cash deposits rather than final duty payments. The importer posts a cash deposit at the estimated rate when the goods enter. That deposit is a placeholder. When Commerce completes its administrative review and calculates the final assessment rate, the actual duty owed may be higher or lower than the deposit. If it is lower, the importer is entitled to a refund of the difference; if higher, the importer owes more. This deposit-then-reconcile structure is central to how the entire AD/CVD system works, and it means that the true duty liability on these entries stays open long after the goods have cleared the port.

Delayed liquidation and the multi-year timeline

The consequence of this structure is that antidumping and countervailing duty entries are typically liquidated only after Commerce completes its administrative review and issues liquidation instructions to Customs and Border Protection. That can occur years after the merchandise entered the country. Where an ordinary entry may liquidate within roughly a year, an AD/CVD entry can remain unliquidated for a much longer period, often suspended pending the outcome of a Commerce review. This delayed-liquidation feature is the crux of the refund problem: the standard refund tools that importers rely on for IEEPA duties are built around liquidation timing, and AD/CVD entries do not liquidate on that timing. An entry that is still suspended cannot be treated the same way as an entry that liquidated months ago, and the IEEPA refund tools were not designed with the long AD/CVD suspension period in mind.

The Aditya Birla and Pack Perfect Motion and the September 15, 2026 Oral Argument

The uncertainty about AD/CVD entries is no longer theoretical. It is now the subject of a specific motion before the U.S. Court of International Trade. David Craven, on behalf of importers Aditya Birla Chemicals and Pack Perfect, filed a motion asking the court to order that all antidumping duty and countervailing duty entries that were also subject to the now-invalidated IEEPA tariffs must ultimately be refunded the IEEPA-tariff portion of the duties paid. The Court of International Trade has scheduled oral argument on that motion for September 15, 2026. For importers watching the refund landscape, this is the case to follow, because it squarely presents the question that the general refund process has struggled to answer.

What the motion actually asks the court to decide

The core of the motion is straightforward in concept and difficult in execution. When an importer brought in merchandise that was subject to an antidumping or countervailing duty order and also paid IEEPA tariffs on that same entry, the entry carried two distinct duty burdens layered together. The Supreme Court has held that the IEEPA portion was unlawful. The motion asks the Court of International Trade to confirm that importers are entitled to recover that IEEPA-tariff portion even though the entry is an AD/CVD entry that follows the separate, delayed-liquidation track. In other words, the motion seeks to ensure that the special procedural status of AD/CVD entries does not become a reason to deny or indefinitely delay refunds of amounts everyone agrees were unlawfully collected.

Why the procedural posture is the hard part

The reason this needs a court's attention is that the ordinary refund mechanisms depend on liquidation events that have not yet happened for many AD/CVD entries. If an entry is still suspended pending a Commerce administrative review, it has not liquidated, and the refund tools that key off liquidation cannot straightforwardly be applied. At the same time, importers cannot simply wait indefinitely, because other entries may already have liquidated and be subject to strict deadlines. The motion asks the court to provide a workable path that accounts for the AD/CVD timeline rather than forcing these entries through a process built for ordinary merchandise. The September 15, 2026 argument gives the court the opportunity to address how the IEEPA refund right interacts with the AD/CVD framework.

What a ruling could mean for similarly situated importers

A ruling in this matter will not necessarily resolve every importer's individual entry, but it will shape the framework. If the court sets out how the IEEPA-tariff portion of AD/CVD entries must be treated, importers across the country, including California chemical and industrial-goods importers, will have far more clarity about whether to file protests, pursue refunds through the administrative process, or bring their own actions. Until the court rules, the prudent course is to preserve rights on every affected entry so that a favorable outcome can actually be captured. Importers who let deadlines pass while waiting for the decision may find that a favorable ruling comes too late to help their particular entries.

How the CAPE Refund Process Handles, or Fails to Handle, AD/CVD Entries

To understand why AD/CVD entries need special treatment, it helps to understand the refund vehicle Customs and Border Protection built for IEEPA duties in the first place. That vehicle is called CAPE, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, a process operating within the Automated Commercial Environment, known as ACE. CAPE was designed to move a very large volume of refunds through the system in an orderly way, but its phased rollout reveals how much the process depends on liquidation timing, which is exactly where AD/CVD entries diverge.

The scale of the refund problem

The numbers explain why an organized process was necessary. Approximately 330,000 importers paid an estimated 166 billion dollars in IEEPA duties across more than 53 million entries. That is an enormous universe of transactions to unwind. A refund effort at that scale cannot be handled entry by entry through ad hoc filings; it requires a structured, phased administrative process, which is what CAPE was intended to provide. For California importers, that scale also means their claims sit within a very large queue, and understanding where a given entry falls in the process matters.

The phased rollout of CAPE

CAPE opened in stages. Phase 1 launched on April 20, 2026, covering unliquidated entries and entries that had liquidated within 80 days of submission. Phase 2 opened on June 29, 2026, expanding coverage to include entries flagged for Reconciliation. Then, on July 17, 2026, the Court of International Trade authorized processing for importers who had filed cases, a step often described as Phase 3. Each phase reflects a different procedural category of entry, and the sequencing shows that the process was built around liquidation status and litigation posture rather than around merchandise type.

Where AD/CVD entries fall through the gaps

The phased design is precisely why AD/CVD entries are awkward. CAPE Phase 1 was oriented toward unliquidated entries and recently liquidated entries measured in days. AD/CVD entries can remain suspended for years pending Commerce administrative reviews, so many of them do not fit cleanly into a process organized around near-term liquidation windows. An entry that is suspended awaiting Commerce liquidation instructions is neither a simple unliquidated entry ready for immediate processing nor a liquidated entry within a short window. This mismatch between the CAPE timeline and the AD/CVD timeline is a significant part of what the Aditya Birla and Pack Perfect motion seeks to address. The refund vehicle exists, but it was not built to accommodate the long suspension periods that define AD/CVD merchandise.

The Liquidation Clock, Protests, and Preserving Rights on AD/CVD Entries

Whatever the Court of International Trade decides in September, importers cannot rely on the litigation alone to protect their money. The customs laws impose hard deadlines that run regardless of pending cases, and missing them can permanently forfeit a refund. This is especially dangerous with AD/CVD entries, where the long suspension period can lull an importer into inaction, only for a liquidation to trigger a short, unforgiving deadline. Understanding the liquidation clock and the tools tied to it is essential.

Liquidation and the finality window

Liquidation is the moment Customs and Border Protection fixes the final duty on an entry, and it starts several clocks. Ninety days after liquidation, an entry is deemed finally liquidated, and Customs and Border Protection generally cannot reopen it without court authorization. The Department of Justice has taken the position that Customs and Border Protection lacks authority to reliquidate entries outside the 90-day voluntary-reliquidation window. In practical terms, this means finality is real: once an entry passes the point of finality without a preserved claim, reopening it becomes very difficult and may require a court order. For AD/CVD entries, the danger is that liquidation can arrive suddenly, years after entry, when Commerce finally issues its instructions, and the finality clock then runs quickly.

The protest tool and the 180-day deadline

The primary tool for challenging a liquidation is the administrative protest under 19 U.S.C. 1514. A protest must be filed within 180 days of liquidation. A timely protest preserves the importer's ability to contest the duties assessed on the entry, and a denied protest can then form the basis for an action at the Court of International Trade. Because the protest deadline runs from liquidation, and because AD/CVD entries liquidate on Commerce's schedule rather than a predictable one, importers must monitor their entries closely so that the 180-day window is not missed when liquidation finally occurs.

Voluntary reliquidation, Post Summary Correction, and their limits

Two other tools are worth understanding. Voluntary reliquidation under 19 U.S.C. 1501 allows Customs and Border Protection to reliquidate an entry within 90 days of the original liquidation, a narrow window that the Department of Justice has emphasized as a hard limit for reopening entries. Separately, a Post Summary Correction, or PSC, permits corrections to an entry before it liquidates, which can be useful while an AD/CVD entry is still suspended. Each tool has a different trigger and a different timing, and none of them is a catch-all. The right instrument depends on where a specific entry sits in its lifecycle, which is why entry-level tracking is indispensable.

Court of International Trade jurisdiction

When administrative avenues are exhausted or unavailable, the Court of International Trade provides the forum. The court has jurisdiction over actions contesting denied protests under 28 U.S.C. 1581(a), and it has residual jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1581(i) for matters that do not fit the protest framework. The pending Aditya Birla and Pack Perfect motion arises in this court, and the outcome of the September 15, 2026 argument will inform how importers should route their own claims, whether through protests leading to 1581(a) actions or through other paths. The government's appeal of a CIT refund order went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which cleared the way for IEEPA tariff refund litigation to resume, so the litigation track is now active rather than stalled.

What Is at Stake for California Importers of Chemicals and Industrial Goods

California's importers of chemicals and industrial goods are among the most directly affected by this question, because merchandise in these sectors is frequently covered by antidumping and countervailing duty orders. When companies importing these products through the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland also paid IEEPA tariffs during the covered period, they accumulated exactly the kind of layered duty burden the pending motion addresses. The financial stakes can be substantial, and the procedural stakes are just as real.

Layered duties on a single entry

Consider a California importer bringing in an industrial chemical subject to an antidumping order. That entry carried a cash deposit for the antidumping duty, potentially a countervailing duty deposit as well, and, during the relevant period, an IEEPA tariff on top of both. The Supreme Court's ruling means the IEEPA portion was unlawful, but the entry's overall status is governed by the AD/CVD timeline. The importer's ability to recover the IEEPA portion therefore turns on the very question the Court of International Trade will hear. For a company that imports at volume, the aggregate IEEPA overpayment across many entries can represent a meaningful sum tied up in a process that has not yet been clarified.

Cash flow and the cost of delay

The delayed-liquidation feature of AD/CVD entries compounds the cash-flow burden. Because these entries can remain suspended for years, importers may be waiting on multiple fronts at once: for Commerce to complete administrative reviews and finalize the AD/CVD assessment, and for the IEEPA refund question to be resolved. Money that should be available for operations, inventory, or expansion instead sits with the government. For California businesses operating on tight margins in competitive industrial markets, the time value of these funds is not trivial, and the uncertainty makes financial planning harder.

Competitive and compliance pressures

There is also a competitive dimension. Companies that carefully preserve their refund rights and track their entries stand to recover funds that competitors who neglected the process may lose. At the same time, importers must continue to meet their ongoing AD/CVD compliance obligations, because the trade remedy duties themselves remain valid and enforceable; only the IEEPA layer was invalidated. Managing both realities at once, pursuing IEEPA refunds while remaining fully compliant on antidumping and countervailing duties, requires coordination and discipline. For California importers in the chemical and industrial-goods sectors, getting this balance right is both a financial and a compliance priority.

Practical Steps California Importers Should Take Now

Regardless of how the Court of International Trade rules on September 15, 2026, importers can take concrete steps immediately to protect their positions. The worst outcome would be a favorable ruling that arrives after an importer's deadlines have already lapsed. Preserving rights now costs far less than trying to revive a forfeited claim later. The following measures are appropriate for most California importers with affected AD/CVD entries.

Build a complete inventory of affected entries

Start by identifying every entry that carried both antidumping or countervailing duties and IEEPA tariffs during the covered period. For each entry, record the entry date, the estimated cash deposit amounts, the IEEPA tariff paid, the current liquidation status, and any Commerce administrative review that governs the entry. This inventory is the foundation for everything else. Without a clear, entry-level picture, it is impossible to know which deadlines apply or which refund tool fits. Work with your customs broker to pull the underlying ACE data so the record is complete and accurate. Pay particular attention to entries that straddled the period when the IEEPA programs were in effect, since those are the entries most likely to carry the layered duty burden at issue. It is also worth flagging which entries remain suspended pending a Commerce administrative review and which have already liquidated, because that single distinction determines which refund tool and which deadline apply to each entry.

Track Department of Commerce liquidation instructions

Because AD/CVD entries liquidate only after Commerce issues liquidation instructions, importers must monitor the status of the relevant administrative reviews and watch for those instructions. When Commerce issues instructions and Customs and Border Protection liquidates the entry, the 180-day protest clock under 19 U.S.C. 1514 and the 90-day finality window begin to run. An importer who is not watching may miss these deadlines entirely. Establishing a monitoring routine, ideally shared between the company, its broker, and its counsel, ensures that a liquidation does not slip by unnoticed.

Coordinate with counsel and customs brokers

Refund strategy on AD/CVD entries is not a do-it-yourself exercise. The interaction between the CAPE process, the protest statute, voluntary reliquidation, Post Summary Corrections, and Court of International Trade jurisdiction requires careful judgment about which tool applies to which entry and when. Coordinating early with experienced customs counsel and your broker allows the company to sequence filings correctly, avoid procedural missteps, and align its approach with the developing law. Given the September 15, 2026 argument, this is a particularly good time to have a plan in place so the company can act quickly once the court speaks.

Preserve documentation and act on deadlines

Finally, preserve all documentation associated with affected entries, including entry summaries, cash-deposit records, invoices, and any correspondence with Customs and Border Protection or the broker. Where an entry has already liquidated and the 180-day protest window is open, evaluate promptly whether to file a protest to preserve the claim. Do not assume that the pending litigation will protect an individual entry; the deadlines run independently of the court's schedule. Acting deliberately now, while the legal framework is being clarified, is the surest way to keep recovery options open.

Looking Ahead to the September 15 Argument and Beyond

The September 15, 2026 oral argument at the Court of International Trade is an important milestone, but it is one step in a larger process. The Supreme Court has resolved the fundamental authority question by holding that IEEPA does not permit tariffs, and the Federal Circuit's action clearing the way for refund litigation to resume means the courts are now actively working through the consequences. The Aditya Birla and Pack Perfect motion focuses that work on the specific and difficult category of AD/CVD entries, where delayed liquidation and Commerce reviews complicate an otherwise straightforward refund right.

How the framework may develop

As the litigation proceeds and CAPE continues to process claims through its phased structure, importers should expect the practical mechanics of AD/CVD refunds to become clearer over the coming months. The court's treatment of the IEEPA portion on suspended and long-cycle entries will guide whether refunds flow through the administrative process, through protests and follow-on actions, or through some tailored mechanism. California importers who have already inventoried their entries and preserved their rights will be positioned to move quickly as that clarity emerges, rather than scrambling to reconstruct records after the fact.

Staying compliant while pursuing recovery

Throughout this period, the antidumping and countervailing duty obligations themselves remain in force, and importers must continue to comply with them fully. Only the IEEPA layer was invalidated. Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs likewise remain in effect. Keeping these distinctions clear, pursuing IEEPA refunds aggressively while honoring the valid trade remedy and Section 232 and 301 obligations, is the disciplined approach that protects both the company's finances and its standing with Customs and Border Protection.

If your California business imports chemicals, industrial goods, or other merchandise subject to antidumping or countervailing duties through the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, or Oakland, and you paid IEEPA tariffs on those entries, now is the time to build your entry inventory, track Commerce liquidation instructions, and put a refund strategy in place before deadlines run. Trembach Law Firm helps importers navigate customs litigation, IEEPA refund claims, and AD/CVD compliance so that recovery rights are preserved and pursued effectively. To discuss your entries and develop a plan tailored to your company, contact Trembach Law Firm at (818) 514-7680.

Contact Trembach Law Firm at (818) 514-7680 for a confidential consultation.

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