We have a stack of entries in IEEPA refund limbo, and our broker has been filing a protest on each one as it comes in. Now that phase 3 wants a lawsuit filed instead of a protest, nobody on our side can tell me whether the protests still do anything or just add paperwork to an already backed-up queue. One trade lawyer told our finance team the protests are not required once you go to court. A different lawyer told the same team they still are. I do not need the theory. I need to know whether to keep filing one per entry, or stop and put that time into something that actually moves the claim.
We were told the same thing by our counsel, and I have been taking it at face value: keep filing until suit is actually filed, because the protest is not what gets you the refund but it apparently helps the case along once you are in front of a court. I have not pushed back on that because I do not know enough to know what I would be pushing back on. Is there an actual downside to filing one you did not strictly need?
I cannot settle a United States procedural question, so take this only as a data point. Two lawyers giving you opposite answers on when an administrative step becomes optional once litigation starts is not unfamiliar to me. We see the same split whenever a matter moves from an authority's own review process into a court, and it usually means the step is not legally required but is not yet safe to drop either.
Keep filing until the day you actually file suit. You can preserve a protest and still withdraw it once the lawsuit is in, that is the normal sequence. What you should not do is drop it early on the theory that it is already pointless, because if the suit is delayed or narrowed, an entry with no protest behind it has nothing preserved at all.
Your two lawyers are probably both right, because they are answering different questions. One is telling you a protest is not a precondition to filing suit. The other is telling you it is still the prudent move while suit is pending. Once the lawsuit actually covers an entry, keeping a protest open on the same entry runs two remedies at once, which is why it gets withdrawn at that point rather than earlier.
