Importer Files Legal Malpractice Lawsuit, Says Attorneys Don't Advise Protests

A Texas-based pipe importer is suing its customs lawyers for malpractice after their alleged failure to advise it to file protests cost it $6 million, according to a complaint filed Oct. 6 in Southern Texas U.S. District Court. Allied Fitting says Steptoe & Johnson, and more precisely its main point of contact Thomas Trendl and firm customs lead Gregory McCue, did not tell the importer that it had to protest the reliquidation of some of its entries that the Commerce Department had preliminarily found subject to AD duties during an anti-circumvention inquiry. When Commerce reversed course in its final determination and found no circumvention, the protest deadline had already passed, so Allied was unable to get any refunds for the reliquidated entries, the complaint said. Steptoe, Trendl and McCue were made aware of the reliquidations, but did not communicate any new advice based on that information, the complaint says. “We will be filing in due course our detailed answer responding to these unfounded claims,” Trendl and McCue said by email on Oct. 14.