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In Hitachi Home Electronics (America), Inc. v. United States, the Court of International Trade settles the question. Basically, it comes down to the fact that neither the statute nor the regulation imposes any consequence for Customs' failure to meet the two-year deadline. Absent some consequence, the law treats the apparent deadline as a directory guideline rather than as mandatory. While that seems to be contrary to the English understanding of the word "shall," it is a pretty well-established legal principal. After all, if Congress did not bother to specify a consequence, why should the Court bother to create one?

That is the upshot of the decision. In practice what that means is that Hitachi was not able to invoke the Court's jurisdiction to review a denied protest (because the protests has not yet been denied). Instead, Hitachi needs to wait for Customs to act, which is not a great place for Hitachi to be. Because Hitachi will have a remedy available if and when the protest is denied, the Court also held that it could not review the case on the basis of the Court's residual jurisdiction. As a general proposition, you can't invoke residual jurisdiction if you are going to have a denied protest in the future. There are exceptions to this rule including where the protest will be futile or the relief available inadequate, but those do not apply.

So, Hitachi is back to twiddling its metaphorical thumbs waiting to see what Customs will do. And, in case you are wondering, the protest was filed in May of 2005.

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