FedEx Sues US Government to Recoup Tariff Losses

FedEx has taken legal action over the tariffs recently struck down by the Supreme Court.

The shipping giant’s complaint, filed Monday (Feb. 23), is believed to be the first major lawsuit seeking a reimbursement since the court ruled that President Donald Trump had no authority to issue tariffs under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA).

FedEx is asking the U.S. Court of International Trade for an order requiring Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to refund all tariffs paid last year under the IEEPA.

“Plaintiffs have standing to bring this lawsuit because they are the importers of goods imported into the United States from countries subject to the IEEPA duties as implemented and collected by CBP that have been held by the Supreme Court to be unlawful,” the suit reads.

“As a result of the executive orders identified in this lawsuit, Plaintiffs have paid IEEPA duties to the United States and thus have suffered injury caused by those orders.”

The company had said last summer that it was anticipating a $1 billion headwind in its current fiscal year because of the global trade environment. As PYMNTS wrote last fall, FedEx was among several high-profile companies projecting a 9-to-10-figure hit due to the tariffs.

Some businesses had sued the government before the Supreme Court’s ruling came down, including Costco, Revlon, Kawasaki and Bumble Bee Foods.

In their 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court found that the Trump administration did not have authority, as it had claimed, to impose tariffs under the IEEPA. That authority, the ruling said, rests with Congress.

Following the ruling, Trump threatened to levy a new 15% global tariff under a different trade law, which permits the executive to institute tariffs for up to 150 days in cases of “large and serious” balance-of-payment deficits.

The Supreme Court ruling, PYMNTS wrote Monday, found that the tariffs were illegal but did not address what happens to the duties already paid.

“That omission is more than procedural, and it can leave companies navigating a gray zone in which potential tariff refunds exist in theory, yet lack a defined administrative pathway,” that report said.

“In many industries, tariffs imposed over the past several years have already been passed through to customers, renegotiated into supplier contracts, or capitalized into long-term inventory strategies. The financial record is settled even if the legal one is not. Recovering duties, should a mechanism emerge, will require untangling transactions that were never designed to be reversed.”