Hong Kong shirtmaker Esquel Group resumes lawsuit in bid to remove Xinjiang unit from US forced-labour sanctions list

Hong Kong-based Esquel Group, one of the world’s biggest shirtmakers, said it had resumed litigation to remove its Xinjiang unit from an American blacklist after it failed to reach an agreement with the US Commerce Department on what conditions it could be removed.

Earlier this month, Esquel won a rare victory over a US blacklisting when the End-User Review Committee, a US inter-agency body, voted to remove its Changji Esquel unit under certain conditions from the so-called entity list, which prohibits it from buying from American suppliers.

“Despite good-faith efforts since early August, Esquel Group and the US Department of Commerce have not been able to come to a resolution, as the US government is unable to provide any concrete timeline by which it could finally remove [Changji Esquel] from the entity list,” Esquel said in a statement. “In the meantime, Esquel has suffered substantial, ongoing, and irreparable harms that have continued and even worsened in the last month.”