In February, when the Supreme Court declared the lion's share of President Trump's tariffs illegal,

the justices left one big question unanswered.

What did the Supreme Court say about tariff refunds?

It said nothing.

That's my colleague Lydia Wheeler.

Ever since Trump's sweeping tariffs, companies big and small have altogether paid the government billions of dollars.

And now, a lot of them want their money back.

Is this like the most complicated refund in history?

It is a lot of money.

It is $166 billion.

So, you know, the federal government has never been told that it has to give back that much money before.

And so what happened is the Supreme Court left it to lower courts to hash all that out.

Figuring out who gets refunds and how is a complicated job.

And that job has fallen to a little-known trade court and a little-known judge.

All of this has put a big spotlight on a little tiny court

that no one really knows about,

and even lawyers often forget exists,

and also a very interesting judge who's 77 years old and semi-retired

and is now the one at the helm of figuring out how all these people are going to get their money back.

What's at stake here to get this right?

I mean, we talk to companies who kind of the tariffs put them in a crisis.

And there are a lot of companies that are really desperate to get their money back.

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