CIT denies dismissal and preliminary injunction in challenge to NMFS 2026 comparability findings on New Zealand fisheries

The U.S. Court of International Trade, in Slip Op. 26-73, Court No. 26-02462, denied the government's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and denied Maui and Hector's Dolphin Defenders NZ Inc.'s motion for a preliminary injunction that would have enjoined NMFS's March 11, 2026 comparability findings and imposed an import ban on New Zealand set net and trawl fisheries. The plaintiff challenges the 2026 Comparability Findings, 91 Fed. Reg. 11,962, as arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), and alleges the failure to implement an import ban is agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1).