By Naisha John
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A class action lawsuit accuses Logitech Inc. of passing tariff costs on to consumers through higher prices and then keeping those increases even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump lacked authority under federal emergency law to impose the tariffs and the government began issuing refunds.
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of consumers who purchased Logitech products at prices the suit alleges were inflated to cover tariff costs.
President Trump began imposing new tariffs on goods from U.S. trading partners in early 2025, using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. The act was passed in 1977 to grant the president “broad authority to regulate a variety of economic transactions following a declaration of national emergency.”
The IEEPA tariffs initially targeted goods from Canada, Mexico and China before being expanded to imports from nearly every country with which the U.S. trades. President Trump had declared 77 national emergencies by September 2025, using emergency powers under IEEPA.
Companies that imported goods, including Logitech, were required to pay the tariffs to the federal government. According to the press release announcing the lawsuit, the government collected an estimated $166 billion through the IEEPA tariffs, with much of the cost ultimately passed on to consumers through higher prices.
However, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. The court held that the statutory language did not give the president the authority to impose the tariffs.
“Tariffs operate directly on domestic importers to raise revenue for the Treasury,” Chief Justice John Roberts explained in his opinion. He also described the authority to impose tariffs as “very clear[ly] . . . a branch of the taxing power” that the Framers assigned to Congress.
Since the tariffs were ruled unlawful, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been issuing refunds to affected importers, defined as “the entity that directly paid one of the emergency tariffs.” While certain importers are offering some forms of refunds to their consumers, they have no legal obligation to do so.
According to the press release, the federal government has returned $100 billion in refunds to thousands of affected companies. Because those refunds go to entities that directly paid the tariffs, consumers who allegedly absorbed tariff costs through higher retail prices do not receive refunds directly from the government.
According to the lawsuit, “quarter after quarter,” Logitech justified price increases imposed in April 2025 on approximately half of its U.S. products as necessary to compensate for tariffs. Prices on individual items were raised by as much as 25%, with an average increase of 14%, according to the complaint.
The complaint further alleges Logitech did not tell consumers that the price increases were imposed to cover tariff costs and has not returned the increases since the tariffs were ruled unlawful.
The Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, or CPM, suit’s core argument is that Logitech used price increases to preemptively manage losses from tariffs that were subsequently deemed unlawful. The suit was filed “on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of consumers who purchased Logitech products at prices the company quietly inflated to cover the costs of tariffs, now reimbursed by the federal government.”
The complaint alleges Logitech recovered tariff-related revenue from consumers through higher prices and subsequently received tariff refunds from the federal government without returning corresponding amounts to its customers. According to the suit, Logitech received money back from the government while consumers who paid the higher prices have received no corresponding reimbursement.
According to a report by the Budget Lab, while tariffs can be absorbed by foreign producers, American importers or American consumers, businesses tend to “pass costs forward or exit,” leaving consumers to eventually bear the cost in the form of higher prices. The report finds that across the U.S. economy, price increases passed from tariffs to imported consumer goods range from 46% to 86% and from 51% to 115% for core and durable goods, respectively.
Additionally, Logitech CFO Matteo Anversa was reported to have recently said the pricing changes “delivered approximately 150 basis points of gross margin benefit, more than double the roughly 70 basis points that the tariffs were projected to cost the company,” during an earnings call.
This suggests that, even without government refunds, the additional revenue Logitech generated from price increases would have been greater than the company’s reported tariff costs. According to the suit, this was never disclosed to consumers.
As of July 2026, Logitech received $61 million in tariff refunds. Excluding the refund, the company saw a 14% increase in profits compared with a year earlier in the first quarter of this fiscal year.
“Logitech blamed tariffs when it raised prices,” said CPM founder Joe Cotchett. “Then the Supreme Court struck those tariffs down, and Logitech kept every penny. That’s not passing through costs. That’s pocketing them.”
CPM attorney Sarvenaz “Nazy” J. Fahimi said the lawsuit alleges Logitech took advantage of consumers who relied on the company to sell its products in good faith.
“As alleged, a large multinational corporation blatantly took advantage of its customers who rely on the integrity of manufacturers to sell their products to customers in good faith,” Fahimi said.
CPM attorney Pierce H. Stanley said the alleged price increases affected consumers buying common Logitech products, including computer mice, keyboards and webcams.
“Millions of customers bought everyday products—a mouse, a keyboard, a webcam—and paid an invisible tax that the Supreme Court has now ruled should never have been collected,” Stanley said. “Logitech has the money. Customers deserve it back.”
CPM attorney Vasti S. Montiel said Logitech had informed investors that its price increases were intended to cover tariff costs and argued the company should not retain the resulting financial benefit after the tariffs were ruled unlawful.
“Logitech told Wall Street exactly what it was doing,” Montiel said. “It was raising prices to cover tariffs. Now that those tariffs have been declared unlawful, Logitech doesn’t get to keep the windfall.”
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