Esquel Returns to Litigation Against Entity List Placement
After talks with the Commerce Department broke down over when Hong Kong-based apparel company Changji Esquel Textile (CJE) could be dropped from the agency's entity list, CJE resumed its litigation against the designation in federal court. The company, part of the Esquel group, on Aug. 27 filed a motion to re-set a hearing on a preliminary injunction against its placement on the list.
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CJE was originally placed on the entity list by the Trump administration for alleged practices of using forced labor from the Muslim Uyghur minority population in China's Xinjiang region. Arguing that it was erroneously placed on the list, CJE launched its suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (see 2107070022).
The company then filed for a preliminary injunction against the designation (see 2107260053). Due to a likeliness to succeed in the case given the district court's prior rulings and the irreparable harm stemming from its placement on the list, CJE argued for the injunction despite an acknowledgment from the company that its talks with Commerce would result in the apparel business being dropped from the list. Both parties then filed a motion to extend on Aug. 3 that was intended to allow the two sides to negotiate CJE's removal in line with Commerce's End-User Review Committee decision dropping CJE from the Entity List.
"Unfortunately, despite good-faith efforts by all parties to resolve the underlying dispute ... Defendants have not been able to provide any concrete timeline or assurance of imminent relief from the ongoing irreparable harms Plaintiffs are suffering," the motion said. "Among other things, counsel for Defendants have acknowledged that several variables could delay fulfillment of the Committee’s conditions, and that at least some of those variables are outside the control of the United States government. ... Defendants have also stated that they are unable to provide provisional relief to Esquel pending satisfaction of the removal conditions the Committee has imposed."
As such, there is no timeline for when CJE will be removed from the list, and so the company has resumed its litigation. The need for the injunction is compounded by the fact that CBP has begun detaining and excluding from entry many of the company's shipments from factories outside of China, an accompanying press release said. "Esquel is left with no choice but to resume its lawsuit," the release said.