Camel Energy Urges CIT to Expedite Case on Excluded Battery Entries
Battery importer Camel Energy urged the Court of International Trade on Oct. 29 to expedite its case on CBP's exclusion of two of its entries. The company said "good cause" exists to speed up the case, since the importer "continues to incur damages in port and storage fees" and the exclusion of the goods "prevented Camel’s North American customers from receiving their products" (Camel Energy v. United States, CIT # 25-00230).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Camel Energy filed suit last week to contest the exclusion of two of its entries, which CBP excluded for allegedly violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (see 2510270025). In its complaint, the importer said it didn't violate UFLPA and that it wasn't given an opportunity to prove that the entries don't violate the statute.
In moving to expedite its case, Camel Energy said CIT Rule 3(g)(3) allows for expedition where a case concerns the exclusion of merchandise from entering the U.S. While CBP said the goods were made in violation of UFLPA, the agency didn't specify whether the goods violated the statute for being made with forced labor in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) or for being made by a company on the UFLPA Entity List.
CBP initially issued the importer a notice of detention, which said it would give Camel Energy 30 days to "gather evidence and respond to the notice of detention." That time was never given, since before the company "could submit a single document," CBP told Camel Energy that it was revoking the notices of detention and excluding the merchandise from entry, the brief said. CBP didn't explain why it changed its decision or why it didn't give the importer 30 days to respond to the initial decision, the importer said.
While Camel Group submitted a protest of the exclusion decision, CBP never responded, "meaning that the protest is now deemed denied as a matter of law," the importer said. Since CBP never explained why the goods were detained or excluded, and the importer's protest was denied, good cause exists to expedite the case, the brief said.
Camel Group said the company "has incurred, and continues to incur, significant damages in the form of storage, re-shipping, and logistics fees as a result of CBP’s exclusion and denial of Plaintiff’s protest." The company has had to find a place to store the goods, pay to ship the goods there and continue to pay fees to keep the merchandise there while the trade court reviews the denial of Camel Group's protest. "The longer the review lasts, the more fees and losses Plaintiff will incur," meaning there's good cause to expedite the case, the brief said.
The third reason to expedite the case is that Camel Group and its customers "accrue losses each day" the goods remain excluded, the brief said. The importer said it's a "tier-one supplier in the automotive industry," supplying batteries to "several automotive manufacturers and aftermarket distributors."
Despite the "economic damages to" Camel Energy and its customers, "CBP has refused to explain why Plaintiff’s Merchandise is excluded" despite Camel Energy's full cooperation with the agency, evidenced through its provision of "supply chain mapping to CBP" and all the information requested by the agency, the brief said. "Given the heavy economic and reputational harm to Plaintiff and its customers combined with CBP’s complete indifference to those damages by excluding and delaying its release of that Merchandise, there is good cause to expedite this case."
Camel Energy is the Michigan-based affiliate of Camel Group, which is a large manufacturing conglomerate that was added to the UFLPA Entity List for allegedly making its goods in Xinjiang with forced labor. Camel Group is challenging that designation at the trade court in a separate suit (see 2509300045).