## Facts

- Importers of honey, mushrooms, garlic, and crawfish tail meat entered merchandise subject to antidumping duties and posted customs bonds issued by surety companies to secure payment of duties assessed by the United States.
- The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA) directed Customs to distribute collected antidumping duties to qualifying domestic producers injured by dumping.
- Domestic producers alleged Customs failed to assess and collect hundreds of millions of dollars in antidumping duties that were secured by the bonds.
- Producers sued sureties and the United States (including Customs and Commerce), claiming entitlement to the uncollected amounts or to orders compelling assessment and collection, asserting they were intended third-party beneficiaries of the bonds due to CDSOA distributions.

## Issues

1. Whether the Court of International Trade (CIT) had subject-matter jurisdiction over domestic producers’ claims against private surety companies on customs bonds.
2. Whether CDSOA-eligible domestic producers were intended third-party beneficiaries of customs bonds whose obligee was the United States.
3. Whether domestic producers could obtain relief requiring the government to assess and collect additional antidumping duties or recover based on alleged non-collection.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part the CIT’s dismissal, relying substantially on jurisdictional grounds.
- The court held the CIT lacked jurisdiction over the producers’ claims against the sureties because the claims were, in substance, private contract disputes not within the CIT’s statutory grants of jurisdiction.
- The court held domestic producers were not intended third-party beneficiaries of the customs bonds; the United States was the sole obligee and beneficiary of the bond contracts.
- The court rejected attempts to treat CDSOA’s distribution scheme as converting statutory beneficiaries into contractual beneficiaries of the bonds or as creating a judicially enforceable right to compel additional collection efforts.

## Legal Principles

- The CIT’s jurisdiction is limited to specific statutory categories; it does not extend to general private contract disputes between non-government parties merely because the contracts relate to customs bonds.
- Intended third-party beneficiary status requires clear contracting-party intent to directly and primarily benefit the third party; incidental benefits from government collection do not create enforceable contract rights.
- A statutory entitlement to distribution of collected funds does not, without clear contractual incorporation, make statutory beneficiaries parties entitled to enforce a government security instrument used to collect those funds.
- Absent a recognized cause of action, domestic producers cannot use CDSOA to force the government to pursue particular antidumping-duty collection or bond-enforcement actions.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit held that domestic producers seeking CDSOA offsets could not sue sureties on customs bonds in the CIT and could not enforce the bonds as third-party beneficiaries, leaving CDSOA’s benefits contingent on duties the government actually collects rather than on producer-initiated bond litigation or compelled collection.


Sioux Honey Ass'n v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 672 F.3d 1041 (Fed. Cir. 2012)