Amazon defeated a whistleblower appeal after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims that the company helped foreign fur manufacturers evade tariffs on products sold on its platform, finding no proof that Amazon knew or deliberately ignored that the manufacturers understated shipment values to pay artificially low tariffs. Mike Henig, owner of Alabama-based Henig Furs, had argued Amazon should have realized the foreign manufacturers were charging below-market prices by fraudulently avoiding import tariffs and fees between 2007 and 2024, but the court said there could have been an “innocent explanation” such as economies of scale or lower labor costs. The decision upheld a lower court's January 2025 dismissal, and comes as Amazon faces a separate proposed class action filed Friday accusing it of failing to refund consumers for costs passed on from tariffs the U.S. Supreme Court found were imposed unlawfully.
