United States Court of International Trade

Slip Op. 22-75

Before the Court in All One God Faith, Inc., et. al. v. United States, et. al., Court No. 22-164, Slip Op. 22-75 (June 24, 2020) was the motion of plaintiff for leave to file an amended complaint or to supplement its complaint. Plaintiff filed the case to challenge the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (“CBP”) evasion determinations under the Enforce and Protect Act (“EAPA”). Pursuant to the Court’s 28 U.S.C. § 1581(c) jurisdiction. Plaintiff now moved to amend its complaint to contest CBP’s denial of its protest with respect to the entries subject to the EAPA determinations, under the Court’s 28 U.S.C. § 1581(a) jurisdiction. For the following reasons the Court denied the motion.

“U.S. Court of International Trade Rule 15(a)(2) provides that the court ‘should freely give leave [to amend a pleading] when justice so requires.’ However, leave to amend may be denied on the basis of ‘undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, futility of amendment.’”. Id. at 5. The Court noted that “on September 30, 2021, the court issued an order in this litigation clarifying that it ‘does not possess subject matter jurisdiction to review entries that have already been liquidated except upon commencement of an action challenging denial of protest.’” Id. Plaintiff’s “nevertheless made no attempt to repair that deficiency until February of 2022.” Id. at 6. The

Court found that “this undue delay, taken alone, is sufficient basis for the court to deny” the motion to amend. Id. The Court also stated that because plaintiff “made no effort to amend its summons … to establish the court’s subject matter jurisdiction over the liquidated entries because the summons, and not the complaint, is the initial pleading that” must identify the protest and entries at issue, that the motion to amend would be futile. Id. at 6-7. As such, the motion to amend was denied.