Two Nintendo customers have filed a class action lawsuit against the company, seeking refunds for higher prices paid due to now-invalidated tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. The suit, filed on April 21 in the United States District Court’s Western District of Washington, argues that Nintendo passed tariff costs to consumers while pursuing government refunds. As first reported by Aftermath, the plaintiffs aim to prevent Nintendo from profiting twice from the same payments.
Gregory Hoffert from California and Prashant Sharan from Washington represent all affected consumers in the lawsuit. They contend that Nintendo, like other importers, raised retail prices on consoles and other goods to cover tariffs paid to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Following a Supreme Court ruling in February that declared Trump’s 2025 tariffs illegal, Nintendo became eligible for refunds but has not committed to returning the overcharges to customers, the suit claims. “As a consequence of [the Supreme Court’s decision], importers who paid those tariffs—including Nintendo—became entitled to refunds of the duties they previously paid to U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” the plaintiffs state in the filing. “The economic reality of the tariff regime, however, is that importers like Nintendo did not ultimately bear all the costs of the tariffs. Instead, the importers passed the elevated costs on to consumers in the form of higher retail prices. Nintendo therefore collected the tariff costs from consumers through elevated pricing, while seeking refunds of the same tariff payments from the federal government.” The legal team warns that without court intervention, Nintendo would recover the payments twice—once from consumers and once from the government. “Nintendo has made no legally binding commitment to return tariff-related overcharges to the consumers who actually paid them,” they argue. “This lawsuit seeks to prevent that unjust result.” Nintendo and other companies sued the federal government last month after the ruling but paused actions pending the setup of a government refund process.
