The legal battle over billions of dollars in disputed government collections has entered a new phase after the U.S. Court of International Trade officially approved a petition from importers wishing to file a class-action lawsuit against the federal government over tariff refunds.
On Thursday, the New York-based court certified a group of plaintiffs, allowing them to move forward with the joint legal action. According to the complainants, pursuing the matter as a class will significantly simplify the otherwise cumbersome process of pushing for paybacks on the Trump administration’s now-defunct International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs. That particular duty scheme was struck down as unlawful by the Supreme Court in February, sending shockwaves through the international trade community and triggering a massive scramble for financial restitution by affected businesses.
The newly certified class includes importers who paid into the contested duty scheme between Feb. 1, 2025, and Feb. 19, 2026—the day before the tariffs were officially struck down by the nation’s highest court. The structure of the class specifically excludes parties that have already filed their own separate, individual lawsuits. According to figures provided by the Court of International Trade, more than 4,000 individual lawsuits have been filed in relation to IEEPA refunds to date, highlighting the immense scale of the trade dispute and the broad economic impact of the initial tariffs.
While Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has already made notable headway in returning billions of dollars to the commercial sector, significant hurdles remain. To date, CBP has processed around $130 billion of the approximately $166 billion in refunds due to importers. This has been handled primarily through its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) system, an administrative mechanism that was specifically built and deployed in the spring to streamline the massive influx of refund claims.
Despite the operational success of the CAPE system thus far, judicial concerns have arisen regarding its long-term viability and reach. In a written slip order, Court of International Trade Judge Richard K. Eaton emphasized that progress on liquidation and reliquidation through the voluntary use of CAPE will eventually reach a standstill.
Judge Eaton pointed out that some importers of record have not utilized the system to request their refunds. He suggested that this reluctance or failure is largely because these entities are overwhelmingly small importers who, because of the administrative cost or sheer effort involved in filing a CAPE declaration, or simply because they remain unaware of the program’s existence, will likely never take advantage of the system.
Furthermore, the CAPE system presents its own inherent technical and legal limitations. It does not accept certain categories of entries for processing, such as finally liquidated entries from importers that have not brought their own independent lawsuits to challenge the collections.
Without further legal or administrative intervention, Judge Eaton warned, the trade community faces the stark prospect of the U.S. Department of the Treasury retaining billions of dollars of unlawfully collected duties. This outcome would leave tens of thousands of importers of record denied the necessary liquidation or reliquidation of their entries. Without these vital administrative steps, these tens of thousands of importers will fundamentally not receive the refunds they are legally owed. Should the CAPE system cease functioning today for any reason, the Treasury would maintain custody of the remaining roughly $30 billion in unlawfully collected tariffs, keeping funds that the Supreme Court already deemed improperly acquired.
Addressing these administrative and structural gaps, Judge Eaton wrote that a class-action lawsuit represents a viable and necessary avenue that importers can take to push forward the refund process. The court’s decision to certify the class is driven by the hope and expectation that this legal step will ultimately lead to the liquidation or reliquidation of all entries on which the unlawful IEEPA duties were imposed. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure the full refund of those duties to the rightful importers of record who paid them under the defunct regime.
While the court’s green light for the class-action suit is undoubtedly a welcome win for importers, legal experts caution that it is not quite an instant fix or an absolute guarantee when it comes to prompting immediate refunds. The certification itself does not immediately expand eligibility criteria or trigger direct, automatic payments to affected businesses.
Even so, legal analysts see the development as a crucial stepping stone. James Kim, an international trade partner at law firm ArentFox Schiff, noted the strategic importance of the ruling in a post on LinkedIn. He explained that the decision creates a potential path forward for non-litigants, pointing toward a single overarching order that could eventually require refunds to be issued to importers who have not pursued individual, costly lawsuits on their own.
Looking ahead, the legal proceedings are moving swiftly. According to the trade lawyer, counsel representing the class of importers and representatives for the federal government are slated to join in a closed-door conference on Tuesday. Following that private meeting, both legal teams will have until Oct. 22 to agree upon and submit a proposed schedule, which will include a formal deadline for the government to file its official response to the complaint.
