legal alert<\/a> that \u201cany business that both passed tariff costs through to customers and is pursuing government refunds could become a litigation target.\u201d<\/p>\nNintendo tries to compel arbitration<\/p>\n
With lawsuits in the early stages, no court has ruled on the core legal theories, Holland & Knight lawyers wrote. Businesses have several potential defenses, such as arguing that there can be no unjust enrichment when there is a contract between the parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many jurisdictions, unjust enrichment is unavailable where an express contract governs the parties\u2019 relationship,\u201d Holland & Knight partners Ashley Akers and Austin Rainwater wrote.<\/p>\n
Businesses can also argue \u201cthat the challenged charges were imposed while the IEEPA tariffs remained legally effective and enforceable,\u201d the Holland & Knight alert said. \u201cAccording to this view, the Supreme Court\u2019s subsequent decision invalidating the tariffs does not necessarily render charges collected before that decision unlawful or create a retroactive obligation to refund amounts previously paid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the lawsuit against Nintendo did not allege breach of contract, the Holland & Knight alert said some of the tariff cases make this claim. \u201cThis is the principal claim in many shipping and logistics cases. Plaintiffs allege that tariff-related surcharges were not authorized under applicable shipping agreements, terms of service or tariff schedules,\u201d the law firm said.<\/p>\n
Companies are likely to ask courts to enforce mandatory arbitration provisions contained in their terms and conditions, and Nintendo has already done so. Nintendo filed a motion<\/a> to compel arbitration with Hoffert because of evidence that he \u201caffirmatively accepted contractual agreements with Nintendo at least twice.\u201d Nintendo said in its motion to dismiss that it \u201cexpressly reserves the right to move to compel Mr. Sharan\u2019s claims to arbitration if discovery reveals his claims are arbitrable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legal theory behind the lawsuits is not specific to any industry. \u201cPlaintiffs have filed class actions against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-776832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}