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- Nintendo asks court to dismiss class action lawsuit that accuses company of not passing on US tariff refunds to customers, says: ‘They are not entitled to a refund because …’
Nintendo asks court to dismiss class action lawsuit that accuses company of not passing on US tariff refunds to customers, says: ‘They are not entitled to a refund because …’
Nintendo has asked a US court to dismiss a proposed class action lawsuit filed by customers who argue the company should pass on any tariff refunds it receives from the US government. The lawsuit comes after the US Supreme Court ruled certain import tariffs were illegal. In its filing, Nintendo said customers are “not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs.”Explaining its position, the company said consumers “received exactly what they bargained and paid for” when they purchased Nintendo products at the listed prices. “The money Plaintiffs paid represents the purchase price of the goods they wanted and received; Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs,”Nintendo’s lawyers argued in the filing, as seen by GameFile.The case stems from a lawsuit filed in April 2026 by Gregory Hoffert and Prashant Sharan, who say Nintendo twice profited from tariffs by raising product prices after the tariffs were imposed, then seeking refunds after the US Supreme Court ruled the tariffs unlawful. The plaintiffs are seeking relief for U.S. consumers who bought impacted Nintendo products between February 2025 and February 2026.
Why Nintendo wants the lawsuit dismissed
In its motion to dismiss, Nintendo argued that completed retail transactions should not be reopened in light of subsequent legal developments. Nintendo said, “The common thread among Plaintiffs’ claims is that it is somehow ‘unfair; that Nintendo has not retroactively adjusted its prices for completed sales in response to the outcome of the tariff litigation.”The company added, “But that is now how commercial transactions work.”Nintendo said customers voluntarily purchased products at prices they accepted at the time of sale.“Nintendo or one of its retailers set a price for each product, and consumers decided whether that price was worth paying. Those who bought Nintendo’s products received exactly what they bargained and paid for: a console, game and/or accessory at a price to which both parties agreed,”the company noted.
Nintendo says its product pricing reflected multiple factors
Nintendo also argued that tariffs were only one factor influencing its pricing decisions. According to the filing, the company considered costs related to memory, labour and shipping when adjusting prices.”Like its market peers, Nintendo made the difficult decision to adjust some of its prices in response to market conditions including costs of memory, labour, shipping, and tariffs. Unlike many of its market peers, however, Nintendo did not simply increase each product’s price by the amount of tariffs it paid on that product or impose an across-the-board tariff surcharge,” the company explained.Nintendo said, “Instead, Nintendo imposed modest and selective price adjustments, and it chose to bear the costs of tariffs on some of its most popular products of 2025, including its flagship console, the Nintendo Switch 2.”Nintendo further argued that consumers were not obligated to buy its products after the price increases and could have chosen alternative products instead.The company has also asked the court to send the dispute to private arbitration if the case is not dismissed. Sony is facing a separate lawsuit involving similar claims related to tariff refunds.
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