FedEx sued the US government on Monday, seeking a refund for the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump that were deemed illegal by the US supreme court last week.
The lawsuit marks the first attempt by a major company to receive reimbursement of their share of an estimated $175bn in levies after the highest court found Trump had overstepped his authority in issuing the tariffs. Other companies are expected to follow.
The FedEx lawsuit named as defendants US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which collects tariffs; the agency’s commissioner Rodney Scott; and the United States of America. The suit was filed in the US court of international trade. The company did not specify an amount in its complaint but said it was seeking a “full refund” for duties paid to the US.
“While the supreme court did not address the issue of refunds, FedEx has taken necessary action to protect the company’s rights as an importer of record to seek duty refunds from US Customs and Border Protection,” the company said in a written statement.
Trump has made tariffs a key component of his economic policy during his second term, imposing import duties on goods from nearly every country on earth using a novel interpretation of emergency powers law as justification.
In a 6-3 ruling last Friday, the court made clear that Congress retains the sole authority to levy taxes under the constitution and that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), cited by the administration, could not be used to supersede that authority during peacetime.
The decision marked the first time the supreme court has overruled Trump’s policies in his second term, and undercut his claims to executive authority, and the assertions he has relied upon to reshape US trade policy. But it did not make clear whether businesses would be entitled to refunds.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh addressed the issue, claiming: “The court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers.” He added that “refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences for the US treasury”.
The the president swiftly and sharply rebuked the supreme court after the ruling, and claimed it would do little to slow him down. Trump said he would move forward with new global tariffs issued under different statutes. He then announced a 10% global tariff which he increased to 15% less than 24 hours later.
“The policy hasn’t changed. The legal tools that implement that may change but the policy hasn’t changed,” top US trade negotiator Jamieson Greer told the ABC News Sunday politics show This Week, arguing that it gives US business “a lot of leverage” in world trade.
Meanwhile, a group of Senate Democrats have called for refunds from the illegally collected tariffs to go to small businesses, and have pushed larger companies to pass any amount returned to them on to their customers.
In 2025, the tariffs amounted to a $1,000 tax increase on US households, according to an estimate from the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit conservative thinktank.
“Historical evidence and recent studies show that tariffs are taxes that raise prices and reduce available quantities of goods and services for US businesses and consumers,” the organization wrote in its analysis, “resulting in lower income, reduced employment, and lower economic output.”
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this story
