Zuru co-founders and brothers Mat Mowbray (left) and Nick Mowbray, whose company is suing the US Government. Composite Photo / Supplied
New Zealand-founded manufacturing conglomerate Zuru has sued the United States Government, leveraging a Supreme Court decision that ruled President Donald Trump’s tariffs were illegal and claiming entitlement to hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds.
In its complaint to the United States Court of International Trade, Zuru called the tariffs “unprecedented and unlawful” and said the collection of US$200 billion ($340b) from tens of thousands of companies over the past year had a “devastating effect on importers”.
Zuru last year found itself at ground zero in Trump’s trade war, with the company having the United States as its largest market and China as its manufacturing base.
In a series of tit-for-tat tariff escalations from February last year, China and the United States imposed up to 145% duties on imports from each other, before a mid-year truce led to goods from China being subject to a 30% tariff.
Questions sent to Zuru this week about the suit went unanswered. Zuru is one of several thousand large importers to have filed claims after the Supreme Court ruling as uncertainty over the process and extent of refund payments drags on.
During the peak of the US-China tariff escalation, when rates hovered at more than 100%, Zuru co-CEO Nick Mowbray told Newstalk ZB that with $2b of annual revenue coming from the US, the potential cost of tariffs to his company could run into the billions.
Even with the eventual lower 30% rate, this suggests Zuru is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars it paid in tariffs over the past year to be refunded.
Importers had challenged the legality of last year’s tariffs and in late February those appeals reached the Supreme Court, where Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose the trade taxes was ruled unlawful.
Courts ordered tariffs collected to date to be repaid, but the process – involving repaying 30,000 possible claimants more than US$200b collected over the past year – has proven complicated and elongated.
Tracey Epps, a lawyer and trade consultant based in Wellington, said trade with the United States in 2025 had been chaotic.
“For a long time we’ve relied on these international rules. They got breached sometimes, but, by-and-large, countries agreed not to raise tariffs above levels that they’ve committed to under World Trade Organisation rules,” she said.
“For the US to come along and do what they’ve done, that has caused huge disruption.”
She said the refund process triggered by the Supreme Court ruling was still in flux and was “still very uncertain”. She was not surprised to see companies affected filing lawsuits to protect their positions.
Exports from New Zealand had a 15% tariff imposed by the United States.
After Trump’s legal defeat his administration cancelled the unlawful tariffs and used another mechanism to apply a flat 10% to all imports – including those from New Zealand.
New Zealand United States Council (NZUSC) executive director Fiona Cooper said the refund process only applied to registered importers – typically exporters with a large market in the US.
She said the first 12 months of the Trump administration had delivered “a year of ups and downs and challenges, but some opportunities too”.
She said she and the NZUSC “didn’t welcome the imposition of these so-called reciprocal tariffs” and the Supreme Court decision had been met “with some relief”.
She said large companies preserving their position with lawsuits was “probably a sensible thing to do”.
The moving feast of changing tariff rates – escalating seemingly on White House whims, only to be slashed after adverse court rulings – had proved testing for trade relations.
“The uncertainty has been terrible, and I’ve been very impressed at the way that New Zealand companies have risen to the challenge.”
Cooper said smaller exporters not registered as importers had found conditions particularly difficult.
These companies have had to deal with the disruptions of tariffs, particularly the removal of the de minimis rule that previously exempted smaller purchases from duties, but were not entitled to directly claim for refunds.
“Some of the bigger companies have a bit more flexibility and can shuffle things around,” she said.
Cooper said commercial relationships and contracts were unlikely to have contemplated the tariff roller-coaster of the past year.
“I think there may be some learnings for New Zealand companies about preparing for this sort of contingency in the future, and maybe putting that into contracts. In the absence of that now, they’re just going to have conversations,” she said.
Cooper said it seemed possible that tariffs would become an ongoing part of the US-NZ trade relationship.
“I don’t think we should necessarily assume that things will go back to the way they were once we have a new administration post-Trump,” she said.
“It may be difficult for an administration to give up that tariff revenue, regardless of whether they’re Republican or Democrat.”
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter and ICIJ member covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.