The same non-profit public interest legal group that represented small business plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case against President Donald Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs has launched a new tool to help importers access duty refunds.

On Thursday, the Liberty Justice Center announced the launch of Operation Refund Rescue, a platform designed to help small businesses that haven’t been able to access IEEPA tariff refunds.

While Customs and Border Protection has refunded a significant portion of the $166 billion collected under the now-defunct IEEPA tariff scheme, a significant number of businesses have been unable to collect the money they’re rightfully owed.

According to the group, a critical obstacle involves entries that have reached the final liquidation stage, and many importers have been unable to prompt paybacks from the federal government without filing their own lawsuits in the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT), which first ruled against the administration’s tariff agenda in spring of 2025.

Filing those suits, which can run up $10,000-$50,000 in legal fees, is cost-prohibitive for many businesses. Sometimes, the tariff relief is worth less than what it would cost them to hire private counsel.

As such, the public interest law firm has deployed a new framework for helping qualifying businesses, which include those that paid into the IEEPA tariffs and that have entries that have reached final liquidation and are not eligible for refunds through CBP’s CAPE process .

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