Games Workshop pockets £7.8m tariff refund after US Supreme Court ruling

Games Workshop has received a £7.8 million refund from the US administration after the Supreme Court ruled Donald Trump's "liberation day" tariffs illegal, the company disclosed in a positive trading update.

The Warhammer manufacturer initially paid US customs £12 million to continue trading across the Atlantic—a significant hit to its balance sheet. However, the company successfully reclaimed £7.8 million of those charges following the Supreme Court's ruling, it announced on Tuesday.

The group now expects to shoulder approximately £13 million in tariff costs over the next full year to cover replacement import duties introduced by Donald Trump after the ruling.

"I thought this would be drama-free, how wrong I was," the company told investors in its full-year trading update. It added: "The continuous hard work on efficiency gains to improve our gross margin has continued. Unlike some companies, we do not consider tariffs as an exceptional item, but rather part of the uncertainty of operating globally."

'Exciting Times' for Games Workshop

Despite uncertainty over US trade policy—one of Games Workshop's largest export markets—the FTSE 100 figurine maker posted another year of double-digit sales and profit growth.

• Revenue jumped by 11% to £626.8 million in the 12 months to June
• Profit rose by more than 16%
• Core miniature and retail divisions showed steady growth
• Licensing arm suffered a 37% decline

The company declared a dividend of 485p per share, down from 520p the previous year.

"Games Workshop and the Warhammer hobby are in great shape," said Kevin Rountree, CEO of Games Workshop, describing it as "exciting times" for the company.

Tariff Context

The firm's tariff bill offers insight into the challenges British exporters have faced since Donald Trump's reelection last year. British exporters were subjected to a 10% tariff on almost all trade with the US—a rate that, despite its outsized impact on Games Workshop, remained lower than those imposed on some other countries.

The Supreme Court deemed the first wave of blanket trade duties illegal in a February ruling. Trump had used an arcane national emergency pretext to push through these measures. In a rare move, the judgment forced the US administration to issue refunds to companies that had paid large tariff bills.

However, Trump has since reintroduced a fresh round of permanent tariffs on dozens of US trading partners, including a 10% duty on all UK exports to America.