Technology

Nintendo urged a court to dismiss a lawsuit demanding that it pass tariff refunds on to customers, saying that people who bought a Switch console or other products have no legal right to refunds that Nintendo is due to receive from the government.

Nintendo said in a motion to dismiss yesterday that plaintiffs are “ask[ing] this Court to invent a legal duty out of whole cloth to retroactively re-price completed sales simply because the legal landscape has changed.” Nintendo said the plaintiffs “have no legal entitlement to the tariff refunds Nintendo stands to receive.”

The lawsuit was filed in April by two customers who seek to represent a class of all US residents who bought Nintendo products from February 2025 to February 2026. California resident Gregory Hoffert and Washington resident Prashant Sharan filed the class action complaint in US District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleging unjust enrichment and a violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act’s prohibition on unfair or deceptive acts.

“Nintendo engaged in unfair acts by: (i) raising prices due to tariffs; (ii) failing to disclose that it intended to seek tariff refunds; and (iii) retaining tariff refunds despite having passed the costs to its customers,” the lawsuit alleged. In their unjust-enrichment claim, plaintiffs said Nintendo profits were “unjustly obtained as a result of its price increases on goods subject to unlawful tariffs.” Nintendo raised prices for the original Switch console by $30 to $50 and added $5 to $10 to the prices of various Switch 2 accessories.

Nintendo told the court that “the doctrine of unjust enrichment does not apply when a party voluntarily pays a purchase price and receives a product in return.” Nintendo said plaintiffs “received exactly what they paid for: Nintendo products that Plaintiffs knowingly and voluntarily purchased at the advertised price. Nor is there anything ‘unjust’ about Nintendo retaining money that it may receive from the government as tariff refunds. The fact that Nintendo stands to receive tariff refunds does not give Plaintiffs any legal entitlement to those funds.”