been previously revoked pursue it was sunset review and like to address two main issues today first the lower court has jurisdiction over customs denial of our protest second the department's revocation instructions were unlawful as written in forced and addressing these issues i will demonstrate that customs exceeded its ministerial role in this case and it did so by substantively interpret in the revocation instructions in a restrictive manner and in a way that improperly excluded to since entries from the reach commerce instructions that's correct we believe they clearly substantively interpreted the meaning of the word on like within the record shows they had no guidance on that they did it on their own they did it substantively and as we point out in our briefs they specifically interpreted the terms and liquidated to exclude those entries based on that they drew a distinction between an liquidated entry on the one hand and an entry that had been liquidated but whose liquidation was not final due to the filing of the protest importantly they later the ports rejections of you our contention is that we protested the liquidation which is what we were authorized by law to protest that was a combination of all of the information th customs had had before it at any time relevant to our protest this included the original automatic assessment instructions which were not you when you were originally filed protests for the original  was i guess not what you would call this season of your fifteen fourteen because there was no dispute about the meaning of it since i think at the moment we filed our protest which was i in some cases two weeks after the second set of instructions came out and another case about a month after we were protesting the fact that customs had not applied the second set of instructions to our interests they had looked at that say the custom should apply these instructions to to the recently created use that we protested after the second set of instructions and so the protest was customs made a decision not to apply the second set of instructions to the previously dated entries now our view is that all of that all of those decisions merge into to our protest that includes the decision to originally liquidate the entries the decision whether to do it or not to do it at that time to apply the second set of instructions somebody had to look at the second set of instructions and say oh these don't apply because we've previously liquidated the injuries ok that's a decision that was made in addition to that as we filed the protest and regional challenges the original challenges that prior to that decision from headquarters someone at the board in the theory had to look at the second set of instructions and decide they didn't apply to those answers review i don't know if you're familiar with carbon activated maybe not i'm not familiar with that has to do with the question of whether you can  i believe sometimes there have been situations where customs has changed the policy based on a subsequent letter ruling and perhaps as apply that to a previous protest i can't i can't provide a citation at the moment to get your other point we agree that we think our main avenue although we think the proper avenue is fifteen eighteen one eight specifically for the reason you state which is that otherwise a party might be foreclosed from having a review of that decision particularly what happened here by the lower court by stating her finding that  our protest was not denied it was rejected and doing so leaves us in a state of limbo what else are we supposed to do we think that under the statute customs only has the option to take approve or deny the protest not to reject it and even if it is going to reject that that should be considered at denial at least for jurisdictional purposes i believe defendants don't even dispute that they can speak to it when they are here but they certainly did not embrace that part of the lower court's reasoning so for all those reasons yes well the term unlike related is not the findings that you haven't found it to find anywhere what we have argued is that if you take a simple reading of the text of the protests that lower court focused more so on whether the decision by the customs service is final and we agree that that is part of the analysis but we also believe that customs will and make clear that it's it's also the liquidation itself definition what we are relying on is the juxtaposition and the interpretation of plain language of the statute read in conjunction with the regulation as well as customs rulings which we have cited in our relief including  open so we want to think about it in terms of its either liquidated or it's not it's kind of a semantical position that's been taken by customs to say on the one hand well it's liquidated but it's not final but that's not the same as an liquidated we think clearly the term is not defined but we think if you're going to define the term you should look at the broader purpose of of this situation in the terms of a sunset review which is supposed to be interpreted nature of a sunset review duties were actually collected for five years and five months and this is because of that six month time period after feb fourteenth when that when the entries came in while the process was  ongoing and then when we know it is that we filed the protest after the liquidations judges came out we followed the mechanism that's in place and we provided the argument as to why the the revocation should apply to those entries and we think text so there's there's no definition but we think the better approach is to look to the purpose of the sunset review and to look to the fact that by interpret it narrowly as customs has it imposes duties for longer than five years another point i see moving its rebuttal is one of the make a final quick point which is that one thing the lower court had not focused on is that the instructions issued by congress certainly the the agency is obligated to consider the arguments that are raised in a protest and at the time of the protest in this instance both liquidation instructions have been entered or issued by the department of commerce so those constructions were before customs and the arguments paragraph three of those revocation instructions state recognized that in fact prior instructions had been issued so the first census liquidation instructions covering certain entries are core from germany during the period of august first one eleven through july thirty first  twelve are issued as noted above this water has been revoked accordingly all unlike with dated entries of course by including the term unlikely dated converses recognizing that there is this possibility that prior entries had been liquidated so the instructions themselves light you know the prevailing structure why wouldn't want to say well even if something were dated and subject to protest we want to deny the benefits of the sunset that's true your honor however competing concerns to what you've just identified is both agency's obligations to enforce the antidumping laws with respect to the period of review that no interested injury is being subjected on the domestic industry and whether merchandise is being dumped in the united states being sold it below fair market value so the minute the order that was in effect during the review period had those two affirmative determinations underlying them the pension i think that the obligated to administer the order during that review period which is why the first set of instructions came out and instructed customs to liquidate all entries and what was what was in it makes sense for the term to refer to  where if there is a change of law when the matter you know open to challenge and that was applied as long as it was intended to apply to that date interpreting an liquidate in that manner would be counter logical logical conclusion and in fact the liquidations reverted as a result of the protest and customs looked at the issue in new at the protest stage there are no set of instructions that exist that would direct customs to liquidate these entries pursuant to the revocation determination the april fourth instructions anticipate that liquidations had previously occurred as a result of these prior instructions and the revocation determination only applies to an liquidated entry so when u s customs and border protection was executing the april fourth instructions it was merely applying this instructions to suit pursuant to the plain meaning of its terms and going back to the question of whether customs exceeded its ministerial role while the agency did issue a ruling letter in this instance and explained its its determination it didn't exceed its ministerial capacity because all the ruling that it was explaining was that the agency was applying the see before instructions pursuant to the black letter of its terms had the agency adopted to some crops arguments and actually basic view is if the agency has acted to say here are the computation duties then it's been liquidated even if there is a lie or still terminally challenge to be brought the term liquidated is a term that's used very very frequently within customs and trade law and as judge dyke has previously noted if we were to interpret that term beyond its plain meaning it would alter the application of trade laws in a myriad of example where liquidation had occurred and then a subsequent minix administrate determination was issued that altered that and where the trial court said we're not going to apply that determination because your entries have liquidated and the instructions only applied on liquidated entries this example here the example of a revocation proceeding is another example but there are myriad examples where the agencies work in tandem were customs execute substantive deter the determinations within the trade contacts that commerce has made and when congress its instructions to the customs oftentimes those instructions turn on the status of an entry of whether to be liquidated or on the quid and these two examples are just two where if we interpret it beyond its plain meeting and interpret it to include this broader univers legality liquidation through the protest method or sunset reviews why would you want to make that distinction because protests are intended to be directed towards substantive determinations of customs and revocation why given that structure would congresswoman say no we're not going to allow that respect to sunset because because customs is the agency that has been directed to make that decision if congress wanted to encompass the scenario that you've  described then sixteen seventy five d three would have been written to say that the revocation determination applies to all entries regardless of the quotation status they didn't include that language instead they had this very significant qualifier on liquidated entries so about is a limited remedy here where the person first has to file a protest and then has to advance the protests based upon some adventuresome some change or miscalculation that they think is appropriate we don't view that as chaos we view that is using the mechanism that was put in place for exactly that purpose and as it does your argument to hand the relation between your filing of these protests in april and may twenty thir  so at that point we had to file within that six month time period so it's the combination of time for channel for protest to the original liquidations not having run plus a legal assertion that  that those protests and there is no reasonable reason why they would try to draw down an artificial distinction between an entry that is unlikely dated as opposed to one that has been liquidated in a prefatory manner but is still subject to protest if you look at the protest