Tech giant Apple has failed to have a £785m class action lawsuit thrown out of court as a Tribunal ruled in favour of UK app developers.
Last July, there was a class action brought on behalf of UK app developers against Apple, alleging that the company’s App Store holds an unfair monopoly.
The case was taken to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, claiming to represent over 1,500 mobile app developers who are seeking £785m in damages. Competition law expert Sean Ennis has lent his name to the claim, while competition specialist law firm Geradin Partners lead.
The claim outlined that Apple charges a 15-30 per cent commission on some payments made through the App Store, which the app developers are arguing that is “abusive pricing”, only possible due to Apple’s control over app distribution on iPhones and iPads.
Apple settled a similar lawsuit on the other side of the Atlantic by introducing a reduced 15 per cent commission rate for smaller developers.
For the English case, Apple applied for an order striking out these proceedings over commission charged on transactions carried out via Storefronts outside the UK or via Storefronts outside the EU prior to 1 January 2021.
The company argued that the developers cannot have a claim in the UK unless they were charged on purchases made through the UK App Store. The tech giant has City-based law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher as a legal representation.
However, on Friday CAT chairman Andrew Lenon KC, Tim Frazer and Professor Anthony Neuberger dismissed Apple’s application.
In the written judgment, they said the “case on the applicable law should not be summarily dismissed as hopeless at this stage, because the [UK developers] has a realistic prospect of successfully establishing that the claim is governed by UK law.”
Elsewhere, Apple faces even more class actions in London as there one launched in 2022 in the same Tribunal over claims the company misled iPhone users into downloading updates that slowed old iPhones down.
Apple has been contacted for a comment on today’s ruling.
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