CIT Order Sets a Day-80 Gate for CAPE Phase 3 Plaintiff Refunds
A July 15 CIT order sets the day-80 gate for covered plaintiffs' entries in planned CAPE Phase 3 and requires counsel to give CBP the matching IOR IDs. The result is a rolling process that begins before statutory finality and can continue after day 90.
Primary lensEntry posture review
Sub-topicCAPE processing
Evidence base8 records used
Use caseRefund posture
The newest IEEPA refund order draws its most important line ten days before legal finality. On July 15, the U.S. Court of International Trade directed Customs and Border Protection to reliquidate covered plaintiff entries once they have been liquidated for more than 80 days. The statutory window for CBP to reliquidate on its own runs for 90 days.
That difference is not a drafting detail. It places entries from day 81 through day 90 in the same court-directed process as entries that are already beyond CBP's voluntary authority. Once that form of order is entered for a plaintiff, day 80 starts an additional processing path while CBP's separate Section 1501 authority remains available through day 90.
The process also has two data gates. Plaintiff counsel must first submit the importer of record identification numbers requested by CBP. CBP must then accept a CAPE declaration before reliquidation occurs. The court order starts the legal process, but it does not move an entry through it by itself.
As of July 15, Phase 3 development was still ongoing. The order defines the legal and data conditions for the planned workflow. It is not proof that CBP was already accepting these declarations.
Why this is new
The July 15 sample order is written for plaintiffs in a particular case. It orders reliquidation of any and all of their entries that have been liquidated for more than 80 days and carried IEEPA deposits. It does not say only entries beyond 90 days. It also does not extend the command to every importer that paid the duties.
That narrow form matters because the court plans to use it repeatedly. In the related Euro-Notions order, Judge Richard Eaton said an order would be entered in each of roughly 3,700 assigned IEEPA cases. The government had maintained that it needed a court order to reliquidate entries whose liquidation was final. The sample order supplies that authority for the named plaintiffs while leaving the broader dispute over nonparties unresolved.
Finally-Liquidated Entries Become the IEEPA Chokepoint identified the missing reopening event. The July 15 form order now supplies that event for covered plaintiffs and moves the operational question to the day-80 cutoff, IOR matching, and repeat declarations.
Phase 3 is not simply another CAPE feature. Phase 1 already gave importers an electronic claims path for certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation. The order identifies whose older entries CBP must reopen, counsel supplies the IOR numbers, and CAPE identifies the entries accepted for reliquidation. Treasury transmission and actual receipt remain later events, so a launch notice alone would not prove the process is working.
Day 80 is a buffer rather than finality
Section 1501 allows CBP to reliquidate an entry within 90 days of the original liquidation. Section 1514 supplies the broader finality rule and the protest framework. Nothing in those statutes turns an entry legally final on day 80.
CBP chose the earlier CAPE cutoff to leave time for processing. The sample order explains that a declaration filed near the end of the statutory window could otherwise be accepted while the agency still had authority and remain unfinished after that authority expired. The ten-day margin reduced that risk. Day 80 was therefore a processing control built around a day-90 legal deadline.
The July 15 order changes what happens after the control is crossed. It expressly covers all plaintiff entries more than 80 days past liquidation. The order explains that this includes finally liquidated entries and entries that may become final while CAPE processes them. In other words, the court did not merely reopen the closed inventory beyond day 90. It placed the entire processing-risk interval into the court-directed process.
For qualifying liquidated entries through day 90, CBP retains its ordinary voluntary reliquidation authority. After day 80, the form order adds a judicial command for covered plaintiffs and preserves the same directed process if an entry becomes final before CAPE finishes. The legal status of an entry still matters, but it no longer tells an operations team by itself which process should carry the file.
An aging report that starts its court-order flag at day 90 would miss entries captured from day 81. The useful control combines entry age with the case, order, IOR, declaration, and acceptance status.
The court order carries the file across finality
Under Section 2643, the CIT may order relief appropriate to a civil action. Here, the government said it needed judicial authority to reliquidate final entries. The July 15 form order directs that act for defined plaintiffs under stated conditions. It does not rewrite customs finality generally.
That distinction explains why the order can reach the day-81 entry without pretending that the entry is already final. The court is not making day 80 the new statutory deadline. It places the entry under a judicial directive before finality and preserves the directed process if processing crosses day 90.
The distinction also limits the article's practical conclusion. The existence of a sample order does not establish that filing a new suit automatically produces the same treatment. Administrative Order 26-01 ended the automatic stay mechanism for new IEEPA cases after July 13, but existing stays remain until an assigned judge acts. It says nothing about automatic eligibility for a plaintiff-specific reliquidation order.
CBP's public guidance is similarly careful. Its refund page says a CIT case is not needed for Phase 1 and gives no legal guidance on whether a case is needed for other entries. The court record now describes an order-backed path for existing plaintiffs. Neither source supports the categorical claim that every importer must sue or that litigation can never matter.
The defensible read is narrower. For a plaintiff once the July 15 form of order is entered, the court-directed CAPE process begins after the day-80 cutoff even while Section 1501 authority still overlaps. For anyone outside an entered order, the record does not establish an equivalent Phase 3 process.
The plaintiff list must match the customs ledger
The first gate is not an entry upload. It is identity. The order says CBP will send instructions to plaintiffs' counsel. Counsel must then submit the plaintiff's importer of record identification numbers. Only after those instructions are followed may a CAPE declaration be submitted.
That sequence makes the IOR number the explicit matching key between two systems built for different purposes. The court file identifies the party entitled to the order. ACE identifies entries by customs account and entry data. The order does not say how CBP will resolve mismatches involving names, related entities, or multiple IOR numbers.
This creates a separate reconciliation problem before entry eligibility is tested. Counsel's client list must align with the IOR identifiers associated with the entries on which the plaintiff deposited IEEPA duties. The importer or authorized filing broker must then prepare declarations under the matching ACE account. If the court party and the ACE record do not align, the order does not cure the mismatch.
Acceptance is not payment
The second gate is CAPE acceptance. The operative language makes reliquidation subject to CBP accepting the declaration. An order, an IOR submission, and a declaration upload are therefore three different states. None should be recorded as a paid refund.
The Euro-Notions record shows why those distinctions matter at scale. As of July 10, CAPE had accepted about $121.75 billion in potential and certified refunds for processing. About $86.3 billion had been sent to Treasury for disbursement. Those figures measure different stages. The same order reported 9,837 refunds that had not been sent to Treasury because ACH information was missing. Acceptance, transmission, and receipt are not interchangeable events.
What import teams should do
The sample order anticipates more than one CAPE declaration, particularly for entries that become finally liquidated after the first declaration. That makes the planned Phase 3 workflow a continuing control process rather than a one-time inventory dump.
Consider an importer with entries at day 84, day 62, and day 31 when the first order-backed declaration is prepared. The day-84 entry is already across the CAPE cutoff. The other two are not. If they remain unresolved, each can age into the order-backed lane later. A static list prepared on the order date will not capture that movement.
The useful file is a rolling ledger with an as-of date. Each row needs the liquidation date, days since liquidation, IOR identifier, court case, order status, CAPE declaration identifier, acceptance result, reliquidation status, Treasury transmission, and receipt confirmation from the designated payee's own records. The ledger should distinguish an entry that is not yet eligible from one that was omitted, rejected, or accepted but unpaid.
This is the new operational consequence of the day-80 threshold. A case order covers a legal population. The ledger shows which members of that population have crossed the processing line. Repeat declarations then move later cohorts through the same path.
The court also chose an order rather than a judgment because some plaintiffs may need further assistance before all refunds are paid. That keeps case closeout separate from CAPE activity. A successful declaration may resolve one cohort while another entry is aging toward the cutoff or another accepted refund is waiting for payment.
Caveats
The first unresolved population is the nonparty importer. The Euro-Notions order identifies Freestyle World, Inc. v. United States, Court No. 26-01088, as the case in which a class-certification motion is pending. No class has been certified.
Freestyle may become a procedural bridge between plaintiff-specific orders and importers that did not file separate cases. The pending motion does not establish that bridge. The July 15 form orders can move the named-plaintiff inventory while the court separately decides whether and how nonparties can receive comparable relief.
The second unresolved workflow involves entries with open protests. The Euro-Notions order says further CAPE functionality was discussed, while the sample order does not explain how those entries will be processed. It also expressly says that it does not address duty-free de minimis treatment under Section 1321.
These unresolved issues prevent a tempting overread. Planned Phase 3 is not a universal cleanup of every remaining IEEPA refund posture. It leaves class coverage, open protests, and Section 1321 issues on separate tracks.
That is also why the day-80 insight should not be turned into a filing recommendation. The record supports a process map, not individualized legal advice. It shows where the CAPE workflow changes for covered plaintiffs and where the court has left other groups unresolved.
Benchmarks to watch
The government must file a short CAPE progress report in Freestyle World by 5 p.m. EDT on August 4. A closed settlement conference follows at 2 p.m. EDT on August 5. The most useful evidence will not be a broad statement that Phase 3 launched. It will be proof that the process works across each gate.
The next report should show whether counsel instructions were issued, whether the required IOR information was submitted, and whether declarations for entries beyond day 80 entered CAPE. It should also show whether the same order supports reliquidation on both sides of day 90 and whether later declarations can add entries that age past the cutoff.
Payment data should be read with the same discipline. Accepted value, reliquidated value, Treasury transmission, and receipt by the designated payee measure different stages. A rising headline total can coexist with identity mismatches, missing ACH information, or entries that have not yet crossed the cutoff.
The July 15 form order settles one operational question for plaintiffs once it is entered. Their court-directed CAPE process starts after day 80 even though ordinary Section 1501 authority remains available through day 90. The next test is mechanical. Counsel's plaintiff list must match CBP's IOR records, and later-aging entries must remain tied to the correct order and declaration.
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