Nintendo Sues US in Hopes of Scoring Tariff Refund

Nintendo of America has become the latest company going to court over U.S. tariffs.

The videogame maker on Friday (March 6) filed suit against the U.S. government in hopes of recouping the money it paid in tariffs following last month’s Supreme Court ruling that declared the levies illegal.

“This action concerns Defendants’ initiation and administration of unlawful trade measures that have, to date, resulted in the collection of more than $200 billion in tariffs on imports from nearly all countries,” Nintendo’s lawyers said in their complaint, per a report from Aftermath, which obtained a copy of the suit.

With this suit, Nintendo joins thousands of companies that have filed suit with the International Court of Trade to recover their tariff payments. Some companies are also facing lawsuits of their own from customers demanding refunds.

Last week, Judge Richard Eaton at the Court of International Trade ordered the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to start the process of refunding importers the $130 billion collected under the now-illegal tariffs.

When the Supreme Court made its ruling that the tariffs were illegal, it did not address whether the money already collected should be repaid, leaving that up to the trade court.

“That omission is more than procedural, and it can leave companies navigating a gray zone in which potential tariff refunds exist in theory, yet lack a defined administrative pathway,” PYMNTS wrote soon after.

“In many industries, tariffs imposed over the past several years have already been passed through to customers, renegotiated into supplier contracts, or capitalized into long-term inventory strategies. The financial record is settled even if the legal one is not. Recovering duties, should a mechanism emerge, will require untangling transactions that were never designed to be reversed.”

The trade court’s order mandates CBP must recalculate the duties paid by importers, leaving out the tariffs voided by the high court.

According to a report from Reuters, the CPB responded two days later that it could not immediately comply with Eaton’s order, but said it was developing a way to do so, according to the report. The agency said a system will be ready within 45 days without offering an estimate for how long it would take to process the refunds.

Meanwhile, a group of 24 states last week filed suit to halt the new tariffs that President Donald Trump imposed shortly after the Supreme Court ruling.

This suit contends that tariffs are illegal because the president does not have the authority to impose them, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a news release.