Trade & Customs Oct 11, 2026 · 8 min read

Trade court certifies a class of IEEPA tariff payers

Trade court opens a refund route for importers who never sued. On Thursday 8 October the US Court of International Trade certified a class of importers who paid IEEPA tariffs between 1 February 2025 and 19 February 2026, according to Supply Chain Dive. The court estimates about $30bn would otherwise stay with the government. Our view: good news for small importers, but no money moves yet. A lawyer at ArentFox Schiff told Supply Chain Dive the decision “doesn’t immediately expand refund eligibility or direct payment.” Brokers should list clients’ old entries now. Our call: no class-wide refunds are paid before the end of 2026.

Trade court pulls every IEEPA payer into one class, but the refund cheques are still months away
On Thursday 8 October the US Court of International Trade (CIT) certified a class of importers who paid IEEPA tariffs between 1 February 2025 and 19 February 2026. Supply Chain Dive reported the order the next day. IEEPA is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the emergency law used to impose the 2025 tariffs. The Supreme Court ruled in February that it does not allow tariffs. Importers that have already filed their own lawsuits are excluded from the class. More than 4,000 such suits have been filed, according to Supply Chain Dive.
The court’s own estimate is the headline number. Without a class action, it says, about $30bn in tariffs would stay with the US government.

What we think it means

We think this is the most important refund ruling since Customs opened its CAPE portal. CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries) is the online system Customs uses to process IEEPA refunds. It has worked well for big importers with good brokers. It has worked badly for small ones, and for anyone whose entries were “finally liquidated” before they got round to claiming.
The class is aimed squarely at that second group. In our view it shifts the burden. Until now, an importer that missed CAPE had to hire lawyers and sue. Now the court is signalling that it wants every remaining entry fixed in one go.
But we want to be plain about the limits. This is a route to refunds, not a refund. No money moves because of this order alone. The government is still fighting the court’s power to order refunds for people who did not sue. Anyone telling clients a cheque is coming this quarter is getting ahead of the court.

The numbers behind the gap

The size of the gap explains why the judge acted.
About $166bn was collected under the IEEPA tariffs, according to Supply Chain Dive. More than 330,000 importers paid them across more than 53 million entries, according to a July note from law firm Troutman Pepper Locke.
Customs has paid out more than $100bn through CAPE, Supply Chain Dive reported. As of 2 October, CAPE had accepted about $136.6bn in potential and certified refunds. About $126bn had been sent to the Treasury Department to be paid out, according to both Supply Chain Dive and Bloomberg Law.
That leaves roughly $30bn. Supply Chain Dive reports the court’s view that without the possibility of a class action “approximately $30 billion in IEEPA tariffs would remain with the government.”
Judge Richard Eaton, who wrote the order, was direct about who is missing out. “Some importers of record have not taken advantage of CAPE,” he wrote, as quoted by Supply Chain Dive. Bloomberg Law reported that he described these as likely small businesses that may never file. He wrote: “Without these liquidations or reliquidations, these tens of thousands of importers will not receive the refunds they are owed.”
His stated aim, quoted by Bloomberg Law, is “the hope, and expectation, that this certification will lead to the liquidation or reliquidation of all of the entries.”
Class counsel are Lawrence Friedman of Barnes, Richardson & Colburn and Elizabeth Cabraser and Nicholas Diamand of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, according to Bloomberg Law. The case is Freestyle World, Inc. v. United States. Class counsel called the certification “a vital step toward informing and empowering all importers.”
The caution comes from the other side of the bar. James Kim, an international trade partner at ArentFox Schiff, told Supply Chain Dive: “The decision doesn’t immediately expand refund eligibility or direct payment.” He added that it does create “a potential path forward for non-litigants.”

Why some entries fell through the cracks

To see who benefits, you need the liquidation clock.
Liquidation is when Customs fixes the final duty on an entry. It normally has to happen within 314 days of entry, according to an analysis by Baker Botts published in July. After liquidation, Customs can reopen (“reliquidate”) an entry on its own for a short time. Baker Botts notes that after 90 days “the liquidation is considered final.” In practice, the government has argued that Customs cannot reliquidate on its own once more than 80 days have passed since liquidation, only on a court order.
That 80-day line is also CAPE’s edge. CAPE handles unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation, Baker Botts says. Anything older is “finally liquidated” and, so far, outside the portal unless a court steps in.
The court did step in, but only for those who sued. A 15 July order from Judge Eaton told Customs to reliquidate certain finally liquidated entries. Baker Botts wrote that the order “applies only to the approximately 3,700 importers that filed complaints at the CIT.”
Customs has now started paying those plaintiffs. A 6 October court filing, reported by Supply Chain Dive on 8 October, says Customs began processing finally liquidated entries through CAPE. As of 6 October it had accepted 477 declarations covering 425,517 entries. This third phase of CAPE was expected to cover about $11.4bn, or 6.9% of IEEPA tariffs. It had been targeted for the end of July and slipped to October.
Even that phase is narrow. Only plaintiffs who gave a valid importer-of-record number by 30 July 2026 can be paid now, Supply Chain Dive reported. Others must wait for instructions, and Customs has not said when those will come.
For small importers the maths of suing never worked. Baker Botts warned in July that for importers with small payments, “the costs associated with filing its own CIT complaint may exceed the amount of any anticipated refund.” The class action is the court’s answer to that problem.

The appeal that could still undo it

There is a large legal risk hanging over all of this.
The Justice Department has appealed the CIT’s order to refund finally liquidated entries. It argues the court lacks jurisdiction for a universal refund order and that relief should go only to parties that sued, Supply Chain Dive reported. The appeal is pending at the Federal Circuit, the appeals court above the CIT.
Bloomberg Law notes why the class matters here. The administration has argued against universal injunctions under a Supreme Court decision from last year. A certified class is a standard way to give broad relief to a large group without a universal injunction. In our view, that is exactly why the judge chose this tool. It is a hedge against losing on appeal.
It is not bulletproof. The government opposed class certification when it was argued in the summer. The RV Industry Association, previewing the August hearing, said the Justice Department argued the request was filed too late. We expect the government to keep pressing that point.
The next dates are close. The court has scheduled a closed conference with the parties for Tuesday 13 October. It has set a 22 October deadline for proposed scheduling of further filings in the class action, according to Supply Chain Dive. Several legal steps remain before any sweeping refund order can be issued.

What forwarders and brokers should do now

For customs brokers, this ruling turns into phone calls. Small and mid-sized importers, including e-commerce sellers who paid IEEPA duties on low-margin goods, will ask if they are now owed money. Some will have assumed the refund window closed. Here is what we would do.
First, sort clients into three groups. Those who sued are outside the class and stay on their own track. Those who filed in CAPE should keep following CAPE. Those who did neither are the people this ruling is for.
Second, pull entry data for the third group. Identify entries from 1 February 2025 to 19 February 2026 that carried IEEPA duties. Mark the liquidation date for each. Entries more than 80 days past liquidation are the ones CAPE cannot reach today.
Third, check the basics. CAPE’s finally-liquidated phase has turned on whether a plaintiff gave a valid importer-of-record number by a set date. A class process is likely to have its own paperwork. Clients with messy importer records should clean them up now.
Fourth, manage expectations. Do not quote amounts or dates. The judge has not ordered any payment to the class. The appeal could narrow or erase the route.
Fifth, watch your own exposure. Where a forwarder or broker acted as importer of record for overseas sellers, the refund question lands on you. Work out now who is owed what, and in writing.
For lanes, the effect is about cash, not cargo. A refund to tens of thousands of small importers would return working capital to exactly the businesses that cut orders when the tariffs hit. That will not move freight rates on its own. But it is one more reason small shippers may restock ahead of 2027 once money arrives.

Our prediction

Our call: no class-wide refund order is issued before the end of 2026. The 22 October scheduling filings will set out a timetable that runs into 2027, and the government will keep contesting the class. We expect the first realistic window for a class-wide order to reliquidate entries to be the first quarter of 2027, and later if the Federal Circuit rules against universal refunds first. Brokers who have their clients’ entry lists ready by year end will be the ones who get paid first when it happens.

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