Shimano, Trek, Ibis join growing queue for tariff refunds after Supreme Court ruling

Evil Bikes, Guardian Cycles, Unsplash

The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled that most of President Donald Trump's import tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) were unlawful. For the cycling industry, and more broadly, any businesses with US trade, which have spent the past year navigating what many have described as tariff chaos, the Friday ruling was a welcome glimmer of hope. But almost immediately, new questions arose. Chiefly: Will companies be able to get back any of the tariff fees they paid?

In a 6–3 decision, the Court found that the president exceeded his authority by using IEEPA to impose broad, country-based import tariffs in April 2025. The case was brought by a coalition of states and small businesses, including Vermont-based cycling apparel brand Terry Precision Cycling. The ruling, predictably, prompted companies affected by the tariffs to seek refunds, even though the pathway for getting their money back is unclear as the Court's ruling did not address it.

Right now, the primary approach seems to be filing lawsuits. Trek is among the companies that have filed at the US Court of International Trade (CIT) seeking to recover IEEPA duties paid, along with interest and costs. Others, including Shimano, Specialized, Tern Bicycle, Quality Bicycle Products, Marin, and Ibis, have also joined refund actions alongside larger brands, such as FedEx and Costco.

New US tariffs are going to wreak havoc on the bike industryWednesday’s announcement of sweeping, near-worldwide tariffs on imports into a key market left many brands in shock and unsure how to respond.Escape CollectiveSuvi Loponen

IEEPA was written in the late 1970s as an emergency statute, and the core legal question at issue in the recent case was whether it could be used to impose tariffs of effectively unlimited scope and duration without congressional authorisation. The Court found it cannot, and as a result, US Customs and Border Protection stopped collecting the IEEPA tariffs covered by the ruling on Tuesday, 23 February.

Ibis Cycles' president, Tom Morgan, told Escape Collective in an email that there was a sense of relief after the court decision, not only because the bike industry, like others, had been waiting so long for the ruling, but also because it "restored some degree of faith" that the "system of checks and balances hasn't been totally corrupted." However, the sense of relief was short-lived, as the ruling left as many questions open as it answered, not least of which was whether companies were entitled to refunds and how to get them.

"I would say in terms of clarity, we have more questions than answers," State Bicycle Co co-founder Mehdi Farsi told Escape in an email after the Supreme Court judgment.

What happens now?

One immediate question is what happens to the money already paid. Tariffs collected under the IEEPA have become a considerable revenue stream – estimated to total some US$170 billion – for the administration, and the Supreme Court did not lay out a clear system for claiming reimbursements. As such, whether refunds will be issued, when they might be processed, and how customs will implement the post-ruling tariff framework in the meantime are now questions businesses are asking.

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