Companies are set to start getting refunds on President Donald Trump‘s unconstitutional tariffs. Some customers are suing to get a cut of the money.
US Customs and Border Protection told shippers last week that it would start issuing refunds as early as Tuesday to companies that have applied. The agency did not comment Monday when asked whether it was on track to issue those payments.
The story doesn’t end there, though. Customers are suing some companies for a share of the refunds they say they paid through higher prices and fees on goods and services.
Nike is the latest target. Customers of the shoe brand filed a lawsuit against the company on Friday in the US District Court for the District of Oregon.
The lawsuit names seven people who purchased Nike products that were subject to the tariffs that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in February. While Nike said last year that it expected a $1 billion hit from the tariffs, it made up at least some of the difference by raising prices for shoes and other sportswear, according to the lawsuit.
“Nike stands to recover the same tariff payments twice—once from consumers through higher prices and again from the federal government through tariff refunds,” the lawsuit reads.
Nike did not immediately respond to a request for comment or respond to the claims in court filings.
Other companies are facing similar lawsuits.
One Costco customer, for example, sued the warehouse chain in March, alleging that the retailer is similarly poised to recover its tariff costs twice unless it refunds customers.
Costco CEO Ron Vachris has said that the company would pass along any refunds it gets from the federal government in the form of “lower prices and better values for members.”
FedEx and UPS, which billed customers for tariffs on US-bound shipments, have also faced suits seeking refunds of both the tariffs themselves and the brokerage fees they charged. In some cases, those brokerage fees were nearly as much as the tariffs themselves, according to one of the lawsuits against FedEx.
FedEx and UPS have said they will return tariff payments to customers once the government refunds them.
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