Fiduciary duty is fun to define because I’d bet it could be argued both ways here. If you want to consider Costco’s low margins as a core factor as to why consumers choose them, opting for a decision that makes their customer base run off wouldn’t be very responsible to shareholders.

Consider the Target backlash last year. They’re since down 14% vs Walmart (up 30-ish%). Regardless of anyone’s political beliefs, I don’t think a 14% loss seemingly caused by behavior that a segment of customers considered hostile is thinking of the shareholders.

I don't even really understand why that plan would be "enraging" or really even counter to what customers expect from Costco. Assuming you continue to buy from Costco, and most Costco customers are regular buyers, you'll effectively get the money back in future lower prices and end up paying the same total amount on Costco purchases as if they had sent you a refund check.

I can see the appeal of an immediate refund check, but using the tariff refund to lower future prices for customers in a way that drives continued sales seems like both responsible thing to do from a fiduciary perspective and a not unreasonable compromise for the customer. Many companies would, and will, simply pocket the refund.

As a long-time Costco member and very minor shareholder (like 10 shares), lawsuits like this are frustrating. It is in my best interest as both member and shareholder for Costco to relentlessly look for opportunities to reduce costs, including getting credits back from procurement and sourcing. It would be costly to try and determine the tariff impact to every member and then pass it back along. I'd rather see those funds contribute to keeping prices low by offsetting other cost pressures.

> this is a wild fantasy when dealing with any commercial entity with a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

"Fiduciary duty" is less strict than you'd expect. Courts generally recognize a "business judgment rule," where executives are offered broad discretion in strategy subject to some basic reasonability tests.

This would allow Costco to say "in order to cultivate goodwill and maintain our reputation, after we receive refunds we will distribute them to our customers based on purchased goods with refunded tariffs." It would also allow the directors to book the refund as profits, or use it for later incentives or marketing, or a variety of other actions.

The 'fiduciary duty' aspect here is mostly a myth. Directors do indeed have a fiduciary duty, but that duty is towards the corporation as a whole – including its long-term interests – rather than strictly towards short-term profit maximization. The fiduciary duty doctrine exists more to prevent graft and self-dealing, where managers and directors 'loot' the company by smuggling out profits in ways that benefit themselves personally rather than the company as a whole.

It’s also not hard to argue that people accepted it because they assumed the additional money went to the government.

Costco's position seems pretty unremarkable to me. What % of modern retail sales are both paid in cash, and unconnected to any loyalty/reward program? I'd bet it's under 10%. And even then, a company could refund everyone it knew about, then say "bring in your receipts" for the remainder.

If youve never experienced costco or been a member, this is difficult to understand but there is an undercurrent, nay, a prevailing sentiment of savings value and above all else things like rebate and cash back. Costco has established transparency for the consumer so pocketing the money is an egregious offense for most customers.

- credit cards offered by costco offer generous cashback

- most costco food items include discount pricing thats predictable and visible in the price itself. the decimal value of the price can even determine if the item is being phased out.

- even costco memberships are broken down into savings and the staff will gladly quantify your expenditures and potential cash back should you change or upgrade a membership. unused membership portions are even refunded.

- the refunds. no questions asked, for virtually anything, any time. this is where the costco member expects tariffs to be refunded as well.

Even if that was the case, your infering that customers who paid these fees are not entitled to be refunded when their suing the u.s. government for reimbursement of those collected fees.

If the narrative that u.s. consumers paid inflated prices because of this then the money should go back to the consumers.

Are you making reference to the “class action farms” or to Costco here. Because I certainly don’t think class action lawsuits have victims in mind. Source: recipient of a few coupons and $10.00 checks after some “successful” class action.

I prefer to deal with a company who is making the world a better place rather than a worse one. I don't care whether they like me or not.

I'd rather they did it for good reasons. It makes it more likely that they'll continue to. But they might also do it just to help keep my business, and that suffices.

> Whenever you see companies engaging in political positions, know one thing: it's not you they have in mind.

Yes, those pesky political companies...

* Paying their employees above average wages

* Working with their suppliers to achieve win/win/win outcomes wherever possible

* Stocking products that enhance their customers' lives instead of optimizing for profit margins and nothing else

* Etc

Costco is a rare example of a company doing the right thing and succeeding under late stage capitalism.

> They were free to not buy items if they didn’t like the price.

Customers (had to) accept prices under the assumption that the money went to the government, who are supposed to use it for the public good. You can easily argue that they would not have accepted the same price, knowing that it would benefit a for-profit corporation.

> They were free to not buy items if they didn’t like the price

Customers are buying many goods at Costco one might deem as essential (food, toilet paper, etc) in bulk to save on cost. An illegal tax was being collected everywhere and likely at an even higher cost.

Nothing like the 'free to not buy items' argument against a tax illegally levied by the government on most consumer goods.

I think people are missing the forest for the trees here and immediately defending a corporation reflexively. The point here is to try and recover money that was illegally gathered by the government. Costco offloaded the tax burden onto the consumers and now they can collect said taxes back from the government.

Costco does shady things all the time. They just don’t get called out by customers for some weird reason. For example, they often copy some other company’s product blatantly and make it for dirt cheap in places with no labor or environmental laws, and use their retail power to quickly eat into that market. And they’re powerful enough that product manufacturers can’t afford to fight them for stealing designs or IP.

> Customers freely accepted an offer to purchase as normally happens whenever someone visits a shop.

Hear me out on an alternative POV: the government engaged in lawless economic coercion, and the coercion trickled down. If you don't like it, sure, you can always go get coerced somewhere else, it's your free choice. I don't see why anyone would object to that, assuming of course they are a corporation or a government

I'm pretty enraged that the government was illegally taxing me, and now that those taxes have actually been found to be illegal, I'm not getting a refund.

Corporations claiming the refund on my behalf (and then not propagating that refund to me) is just icing on that shit-cake.