Amazon.com Inc was sued on Friday by consumers seeking reimbursement of costs passed on to them in higher prices as a result of tariffs that the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled were illegally imposed by President Donald Trump.
consumers in a proposed class action lawsuit The lawsuit filed in federal court in Seattle alleges that the e-commerce giant collected hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal tariffs by raising prices on imported goods before the Supreme Court ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in February that Trump had exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose comprehensive tariffs.
Thousands of companies have begun seeking billions of dollars in refunds from the government following the ruling.
But Amazon didn’t do that, the lawsuit says, “not because it lacked the legal basis to do so, but because it was trying to curry favor with Trump by allowing the federal government to keep those funds.”
“The problem is that the funds Amazon used to gain the President’s favor do not belong to Amazon,” the lawsuit states. “These funds were wrongly taken away from consumers to pay for IEEPA tariffs, which are now in effect.”
The lawsuit alleges unjust enrichment and violations of Washington state consumer protection laws.
Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit follows several previous cases filed by consumers accusing Costco, Nike, FedEx and others of failing to pass on tariff refunds to consumers.
Related: Nike sued by consumers for not refunding tariff fees
Friday’s lawsuit points out that unlike companies that import goods, consumers are not eligible to seek tariff refunds from the government for higher costs incurred while the tariffs were in effect.
In support of its assertion that politics were behind Amazon’s actions, the lawsuit notes that in April 2025, the company faced pushback from the White House following reports that it was considering showing how much of its product costs came from IEEPA tariffs.
Amazon denied the claims and said it had never considered listing tariffed prices on its main retail website. But the lawsuit said the report prompted Trump to call Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos to complain.
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