Motion to modify an asset freeze: a seller's checklist

A federal order froze your marketplace funds before you even knew a lawsuit existed. Your Amazon US balance is locked, your PayPal or Payoneer account may be suspended, and the complaint names you alongside dozens or hundreds of other sellers you have never met. The next move is not a letter to Amazon – it is a motion to the federal court to modify or partially dissolve the asset freeze.

TL;DRA motion to modify an asset freeze asks a US federal court to lift, narrow, or restructure the financial restrictions imposed by a temporary restraining order (TRO) entered in a Schedule A defendant case. On Amazon US, that freeze reaches the seller's Seller Central balance and often payment-processor accounts. A well-built motion identifies misjoinder, lack of personal jurisdiction, bond adequacy, or a disproportionate freeze relative to actual alleged damages – and it must be filed quickly, before the TRO converts to a preliminary injunction.

This checklist moves through the process in five phases: understanding the order, gathering evidence, identifying defenses, building and filing the motion, and managing the period between filing and hearing. Each phase contains the checks that matter most. Read through before you act on anything.

Phase 1: Read the order and understand exactly what was frozen

Before you can challenge anything, you need to know precisely what the TRO says – and most sellers in SAD scheme cases receive the order in translation or paraphrase, not as the actual filed document.

• Obtain the full text of the TRO from PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), using the civil case number from the service notice you received from Amazon or the court.
• Identify the federal district court where the case was filed. Schedule A cases are concentrated in certain districts; the rules on TRO modification, bond, and hearing timelines differ by local rule.
• Locate your specific listing number or account identifier in the complaint's Schedule A exhibit. Confirm your entity name or seller name appears as filed – errors in naming sometimes create their own grounds for modification.
• Note the date the TRO was entered and the date it was served on Amazon or your payment processor. A TRO entered without notice generally may not remain in force beyond fourteen days without a hearing or the defendant's consent – that window is your first strategic deadline.
• Record every account or asset the order purports to freeze: Seller Central balance, reserve funds, any FBA reimbursement claims, and any third-party payment accounts named in the order.
• Check whether the order contains a bond amount set by the court. That figure matters: a low bond relative to your frozen balance is itself an argument for modification.

Do not contact Amazon's Seller Support about the TRO. Communications through Seller Central are not privileged and will not produce useful information at this stage. The case lives in federal court; the response belongs there too.

What is a motion to modify an asset freeze – and when is it the right tool?

A motion to modify an asset freeze is a formal court filing asking the judge to change the scope, duration, or conditions of a freeze order, without necessarily dissolving the TRO entirely. It is distinct from a motion to dismiss (which challenges the complaint itself) and from a motion to dissolve (which seeks to remove the TRO in full). In many Schedule A matters, a targeted modification – freeing funds above a defined cap, or carving out operating-account access – is strategically easier to win than a full dissolution, and faster.

The grounds most commonly raised in these motions include: the frozen amount is grossly disproportionate to any plausible damages; the seller cannot demonstrate a connection to actual counterfeiting because the products were legitimate; the court lacks personal jurisdiction over this particular seller; or the seller was improperly joined to a complaint containing dozens of unrelated defendants. In matters we handle, the disproportionality and joinder arguments often overlap – a seller moved to the correct court, or severed from a multi-defendant case, frequently finds a smaller and more manageable freeze waiting on the other side.

Our guide to Schedule A / TRO defense for sellers covers the full range of procedural options across the lifecycle of one of these cases. The checklist below focuses narrowly on the modification motion itself.

Phase 2: Gather the financial and account evidence you will need

A modification motion lives or dies on documentation. Courts that modify asset freezes do so because the record shows a mismatch between the freeze and the actual risk or damage – and that mismatch has to be demonstrated with evidence, not assertion.

• Pull every Seller Central transaction report for at least the twelve months prior to the freeze, including the disbursement history, account-level reserve reports, and any A-to-z Guarantee claim records.
• Identify the specific ASIN or ASINs named in the complaint. Match those to your own sourcing records: invoices, supplier correspondence, brand authorization letters if any, and customs documentation for imported goods.
• Calculate the gross revenue attributable to the accused ASINs in the period covered by the complaint. This figure anchors the proportionality argument: if alleged damages are estimated in one range but your total sales on the product were a fraction of that, the disproportion is documentable.
• Document your operating expenses and payroll obligations that will come due during the freeze period. Courts consider irreparable harm to a business when evaluating whether a freeze should be narrowed; concrete obligations are more persuasive than a general statement of hardship.
• Collect evidence of product authenticity or authorization: authorization letters from brand owners or distributors, first-sale doctrine documentation, country-of-origin certificates, and any prior Brand Registry communications that support your status as an authorized reseller.
• If you operate through a legal entity, gather the entity's formation documents, registered address, state of incorporation, and any evidence of where actual business decisions are made. This bears directly on personal jurisdiction, especially for foreign sellers – a separate but related defense covered in the personal jurisdiction defense checklist.

Organize these documents chronologically and by category before your first substantive conversation with counsel. The faster the record is assembled, the faster a motion can be filed – and speed matters here.

Phase 3: Identify and rank your defenses

A motion to modify is stronger when it leads with the argument most clearly supported by the evidence rather than trying to assert every possible ground at once. This phase is about ranking what you have.

• Disproportionality: Compare the frozen amount to the plaintiff's stated damages and to your actual revenue on the accused products. A large gap is the fastest argument. It does not require winning on the merits of infringement – it requires showing the freeze exceeds any realistic recovery.
• Lack of personal jurisdiction: If you are a foreign seller with no substantial US contacts beyond selling on an American platform, this is a serious structural defense. Review the complaint's jurisdictional allegations carefully. The question is whether the plaintiff can show minimum contacts with the forum state – not just with Amazon US generally.
• Improper joinder: Schedule A complaints routinely join dozens of sellers who sell different products, operate independently, and share no common transaction or scheme with one another. Improper joinder of defendants is a viable argument that can result in severance – and a severed case, filed individually against you, often carries a smaller bond and a narrower freeze. In matters we handle, this is frequently one of the first arguments we raise.
• Bond inadequacy: The TRO requires the plaintiff to post a bond to compensate a wrongly restrained defendant. If the bond is nominal relative to the losses your business is absorbing, the court can be asked to increase the bond as a condition of keeping the freeze in place – effectively raising the cost to the plaintiff of maintaining overreach.
• Failure to show likelihood of success on the merits: A TRO requires the plaintiff to demonstrate a likelihood of winning on the underlying claim. If your products are authorized or first-sale goods, or if the trademark claim has obvious weaknesses, this goes into the motion as a counter to the standard TRO factors.

Being named in a Schedule A case does not mean an automatic loss. That is the most common mistake sellers make in their initial assessment: they treat the complaint as a verdict. It is not. The TRO was entered without your participation because that is how the procedure works – not because the court found you liable.

Phase 4: Build and file the motion

Filing a motion to modify in federal court is not a Seller Central appeal. It is a federal court filing that must comply with the local rules of the relevant district, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the specific standing orders of the assigned judge. This phase is the one where attorney representation is not optional for most sellers.

• Confirm the assigned judge and pull their standing orders. Many Schedule A judges have specific page limits, briefing schedules, and preferences on exhibits. Non-compliance results in the motion being stricken without a hearing.
• Determine whether the court requires a meet-and-confer with plaintiff's counsel before filing a motion. Some districts do; some Schedule A plaintiffs use the conference to initiate settlement discussions, which is a parallel track worth evaluating.
• Draft the motion itself in three substantive parts: the procedural background (the TRO, its scope, the frozen amount), the legal argument (your ranked defenses, with citations to the applicable standard for TRO modification in that circuit), and the requested relief (specify exactly what modification you want – a partial release, a cap, an operating-account carve-out).
• Attach a supporting declaration from the seller, under penalty of perjury, attesting to the factual record: the frozen balance, the business impact, the product sourcing history. This is the evidence component; the motion itself is the legal argument.
• File through PACER/ECF. A pro se filing is technically possible but practically problematic: federal courts expect attorney representation in adversarial motions, and a poorly formatted pro se filing often delays a hearing rather than accelerating it.
• Serve plaintiff's counsel the same day you file. Note the response deadline under the local rules and the court's scheduling order.

The motion should propose a specific, reasonable modification rather than an open-ended demand. Courts are more receptive to narrowly defined relief – release of funds above a specified cap, or release of funds held in an account unconnected to the accused ASINs – than to a motion that reads as an attempt to dissolve the TRO entirely when that is not what the filing actually supports.

If a first motion was filed and came back denied or substantially curtailed, a second review of the record can identify the specific gap – in evidence, in argument, or in the relief requested – that drove the outcome. Not every denial closes the matter. Contact us at info@tutamenlaw.com to discuss what a second look at your filing would involve.

Phase 5: Manage the period between filing and hearing

Filing the motion does not freeze the clock on everything else. This phase covers what to do – and what not to do – while you wait for the hearing.

• Monitor the docket daily for any orders from the court: scheduling notices, minute entries, or rulings on related matters in the same case. In multi-defendant Schedule A cases, orders that apply to other defendants can sometimes be leveraged in your own motion.
• Do not remove, destroy, or alter any records related to the accused ASINs. A TRO frequently contains a document-preservation obligation; a violation is potentially a contempt issue and will undermine your credibility with the court on the modification motion.
• Evaluate the settlement track in parallel. Plaintiffs in SAD scheme cases routinely offer consent decrees or settlement agreements during the pendency of the TRO. Accepting a settlement without legal review means waiving defenses, potentially including the personal jurisdiction and joinder arguments that would have resulted in a better outcome. Settlement terms are negotiable; the first offer is not the final one.
• Prepare for the hearing itself: if the court schedules oral argument on the motion, you or your attorney must appear (remotely or in-person, depending on the court's current practice). The argument is your opportunity to address the judge directly on the proportionality and jurisdiction points; a well-prepared appearance meaningfully improves the odds of at least a partial modification.
• Track your ongoing business losses from the freeze. If the motion is denied and you pursue further relief – including an emergency motion or an appeal – the record of continuing harm supports that filing. Keep a running log of payments missed, orders cancelled, and inventory decisions deferred because of the frozen balance.
• If the TRO expires without conversion to a preliminary injunction, act immediately to seek release of the frozen funds. Some plaintiffs do not seek a preliminary injunction; some courts do not enter one automatically. Know the deadline in your district.

The steps above describe the procedural path in a straightforward motion. Your situation turns on the exact terms of the order, the district court's local rules, the assigned judge's practices, and the strength of your sourcing documentation – all of which we review first before any filing recommendation is made. If you are at this stage now, email info@tutamenlaw.com for a focused read on your order and the accounts that were frozen.

A home-goods marketplace seller on Amazon US (winter 2025) came to us shortly after a TRO froze several accounts in a multi-defendant Schedule A case. The freeze covered all Seller Central balances across product categories that had nothing to do with the accused ASINs. We filed a motion to modify on disproportionality and misjoinder grounds, specifying a cap tied to the revenue actually attributable to the accused listings. The court granted a partial modification releasing the unrelated-category balances while the litigation continued on the narrow set of accused products.

Where this process goes wrong

Sellers handling a modification motion without attorney representation most often run into one of five problems, and each one is avoidable with preparation.

The first is filing too late. The window between TRO entry and its conversion to a preliminary injunction is short. A seller who spends two weeks trying to resolve the matter through Seller Central before engaging the court loses the most favorable filing window.

The second is requesting the wrong relief. A motion that asks for full dissolution when the facts support only partial modification gives the court an easy reason to deny everything. Specific, supported relief requests perform better.

Third, sellers frequently underestimate how important the supporting declaration is. The motion itself is a legal argument; the declaration is the factual record. A thin declaration – one that says "my funds are frozen and my business is suffering" without documentation – does not move courts in contested proceedings.

Fourth, the joinder argument is routinely underused. Sellers assume they are bound to the multi-defendant case as filed. In matters we handle, severing from a large Schedule A complaint and addressing the case individually often produces a fundamentally different litigation dynamic – a smaller freeze, a more proportionate bond, and a plaintiff who has to make individualized decisions about each severed defendant rather than pursuing a group outcome.

Fifth, settlement is evaluated in a vacuum. Sellers who accept the first consent decree offered – without having filed or threatened a modification motion – typically settle on terms that reflect the plaintiff's leverage rather than the actual strength of the case. The motion and the settlement track are not alternatives; they are parallel levers, and using one strengthens your position on the other.

Related areas

• Schedule A / TRO Defense – full practice overview for marketplace sellers named in federal IP cases
• Amazon Account Reinstatement – account deactivation and Plan of Action work after a listing or account is taken down

Frequently asked questions

How long does resolving a motion to modify an asset freeze usually take on Amazon US?

The timeline depends on the federal district, the assigned judge's docket, and whether the plaintiff opposes the motion. Some courts schedule a hearing within days of filing; others set a briefing schedule that runs several weeks before any hearing. In districts where Schedule A cases are concentrated, judges familiar with the SAD scheme pattern sometimes move more quickly on modification requests. The period before a TRO converts to a preliminary injunction is typically short, which is why the filing must happen promptly rather than after all evidence is fully assembled. In matters we handle, the first filing usually happens within days of the initial review.

What are the main risks if I handle a motion to modify an asset freeze alone?

The principal risks are procedural and strategic. Procedurally, a filing that does not comply with local rules, the judge's standing orders, or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure can be stricken or simply ignored – and the time lost is time the freeze remains in place. Strategically, a motion that raises every possible argument without prioritizing the strongest ones, or that requests overbroad relief unsupported by the factual record, is likely to be denied in full rather than granted in part. Courts can also draw adverse inferences from a poorly supported filing when later evaluating a preliminary injunction. A further risk: a seller who engages in settlement discussions without understanding the personal jurisdiction and joinder defenses in play often settles on unfavorable terms that cannot later be revisited.

Do I need a lawyer for a motion to modify an asset freeze?

As a practical matter, yes. An entity cannot represent itself in federal court; it must be represented by an attorney. An individual seller can theoretically appear pro se, but federal courts expect adversarial motions to be handled by counsel, and a pro se filing against experienced plaintiff's IP litigation firms – which is the norm in Schedule A cases – is at a substantial structural disadvantage. Beyond the filing mechanics, the legal arguments in a modification motion (personal jurisdiction, improper joinder, proportionality under the TRO standard for that circuit) are specialized enough that the cost of getting them wrong typically exceeds the cost of attorney representation by a significant margin.

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About Tutamen

Tutamen is an independent law firm for online marketplace sellers. We represent Amazon, Walmart, Etsy and eBay sellers in account deactivations, frozen-funds recovery, intellectual-property disputes, arbitration and Notices of Dispute, and US federal Schedule A defense, plus EU marketplace regulation. Our work is attorney-led and confidential, with fees quoted up front. We act for founders, brand owners and in-house teams who need a specialist for a marketplace dispute. Our Schedule A practice moves to dissolve or narrow restraining orders, challenge jurisdiction and joinder, and open settlement on better terms from the moment the order is reviewed. To discuss your situation, email info@tutamenlaw.com.

By Sofia Marchetti – Partner, Schedule A / Federal Defense, Tutamen

Published January 15, 2027

Disclaimer: This article is general information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Marketplace policies and the law change, and every account and case is different. For advice on your situation, contact Tutamen at info@tutamenlaw.com.