The U.S. Court of International Trade has officially approved a petition from importers seeking to launch a sweeping class-action lawsuit against the federal government in an ongoing battle over billions of dollars in tariff refunds.
On Thursday, the New York-based federal court certified a broad group of plaintiffs, allowing them to move forward with the joint legal action. According to the complainants, pursuing the case as a class action will significantly simplify and streamline the complex process of pushing for paybacks related to the Trump administration’s now-defunct International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs. Those levies were famously struck down as unlawful by the U.S. Supreme Court back in February, triggering a massive scramble among businesses and legal teams to recover billions of dollars in collected duties.
The newly certified class includes importers who paid into the controversial duty scheme between Feb. 1, 2025, and Feb. 19, 2026—the precise window of time right up until the day before the tariffs were officially struck down by the nation’s highest court. Notably, the class structure explicitly excludes any parties that have already filed their own separate, individual lawsuits. According to figures provided by the Court of International Trade, more than 4,000 distinct lawsuits have been filed in relation to IEEPA refunds to date as businesses rushed to secure their financial standing.
While Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has already made substantial headway in returning the money, having processed around $130 billion of the approximately $166 billion in refunds due to importers through its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system—commonly known as CAPE—significant hurdles remain. The CAPE system, which was built and deployed rapidly in the spring to handle the unprecedented volume of claims, has been a vital tool for voluntary relief. However, CIT Judge Richard K. Eaton made it clear in his slip order that relying solely on this administrative mechanism has its limits, writing that "progress on liquidation and reliquidation, by importers’ voluntary use of CAPE, will one day come to an end."
Judge Eaton pointed out that some importers of record have still not utilized the automated system to request their entitled refunds. This lag in participation could be attributed to a variety of factors, primarily affecting smaller businesses. He noted that these entities are "overwhelmingly small importers who, because of the cost or effort involved in filing a CAPE declaration, or because they are unaware of the program, will never take advantage of CAPE."
Furthermore, the CAPE system presents its own technical and structural limitations. The platform does not accept certain categories of entries for processing, such as finally liquidated entries from importers that have not proactively brought their own individual lawsuits to the trade court. Without a broader legal mechanism to sweep in these neglected claims, millions or billions of dollars risk being left behind in federal accounts.
"Should further action not be taken, we are left with the prospect of the U.S. Department of the Treasury retaining billions of dollars of unlawfully collected duties, and tens of thousands of importers of record being denied the liquidation or the reliquidation of their entries," Judge Eaton wrote in his ruling.
Without these necessary liquidations or reliquidations, he emphasized, those tens of thousands of affected importers will simply not receive the refunds they are legally owed. He warned that if the CAPE system were to cease functioning today for any technical, administrative, or funding reason, the U.S. Treasury would maintain custody of the remaining roughly $30 billion in unlawfully collected tariffs that have yet to be successfully disbursed.
Addressing the necessity of the new legal proceeding, Judge Eaton wrote that a class-action lawsuit is a vital avenue importers can take to push forward the refund process and ensure equitable treatment across the board. "Today, the court is certifying a class in the hope, and expectation, that this certification will lead to the liquidation or reliquidation of all of the entries on which the unlawful IEEPA duties were imposed, and the refund of those duties to the importers of record that paid them," the official court order stated.
While the court’s decision is undoubtedly a major procedural victory for importers who have felt stranded by administrative red tape, legal experts note that it is not quite an absolute guarantee or an immediate fix when it comes to prompting instant refunds. The certification itself does not immediately expand eligibility rules or trigger direct payouts overnight.
However, legal analysts see the development as a critical turning point for businesses that lacked the resources to mount individual legal defenses. "It does, however, create a potential path forward for non-litigants, toward a single order requiring refunds to be issued to importers that have not pursued individual lawsuits," wrote James Kim, an international trade partner at the prominent law firm ArentFox Schiff, in an analysis shared on LinkedIn following the ruling.
Looking ahead, the legal teams representing the certified class of importers and attorneys for the federal government are slated to join together in a closed-door conference on Tuesday. Following that initial meeting, both sides will have until Oct. 22 to agree upon and submit a proposed schedule to the court, which will include a firm deadline for the government to file its official response to the underlying complaint.
