GoPro faces a proposed federal class action accusing the video-camera maker of raising consumer prices to offset and aggregate $20.2 million in IEEPA duties, then arranging for tariff refunds to flow through a lender rather than returning the money to customers who paid more.
“By its own account, [GoPro] recovered approximately half of that sum from American consumers through the April 2025 price increases, roughly $10 million,” the complaint claims.
The plaintiff is represented by Joseph W. Cotchett, Sarvenaz J. Fahimi, Pierce H. Stanley and Vasti S. Montiel of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP.
“We have been looking at a lot of local companies, like GoPro, that have failed to return the tariff refunds to consumers,” Stanley said in an interview Tuesday. “We plan to hold those companies accountable.”
GoPro did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in San Francisco, seeks to represent U.S. consumers who purchased GoPro products at allegedly inflated prices between February 2025 and February 2026. It claims the company unjustly enriched itself through tariff-related price increases and subsequent refunds. John Hogrell v. GoPro Inc., No. 3:26-cv-11719 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 9, 2026).
The suit alleges that GoPro sold its interest in the tariff refund claim to a secure lender the day before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, which struck down tariffs that the suit claims prompted GoPro’s prices to increase.
The complaint alleges GoPro initially assured consumers that tariffs would not affect its U.S. prices, then raised prices to pass along the costs. It claims the company maintained those prices after the tariffs were deemed unlawful.
“GoPro’s course of conduct was likely to deceive reasonable consumers,” the complaint states. “Reasonable consumers were likely to believe (and did believe) that the prices they paid reflected a bona fide, lawful cost of the goods rather than a recoverable exaction GoPro would reclaim for itself.”
Stanley said GoPro's alleged decision to assign its refund rights to a lender made the case unusual.
“GoPro signed away its right to collect its entitlement to the refund to a third party, so that introduced another layer that is unique to this situation,” Stanley said. “They first made the decision not to give it to the consumers, but even more egregiously, they made the decision to clear it from their balance sheets so they could look better to the acquiring company.”
The lawsuit alleges violations of California's Unfair Competition Law and unjust enrichment. It argues that no contract between GoPro and its customers governed the disposition of tariff refunds.
The complaint estimates the proposed class could include hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers. (To read the entire article, please click HERE)
