British developers have been told that their billion-dollar class action lawsuit against Apple can proceed after the iPhone maker failed in a second attempt to have the case dropped.
The developers behind the antitrust case are seeking up to £785m ($995m) in app fees in the latest move against Apple's monopoly on selling iPhone apps …
Follows antitrust cases in the EU and US
The main argument here is that until recently, the only way a developer could sell an iPhone app was through the official App Store. This gave Apple monopoly power over the same for iOS apps and allowed the company to set its own commission levels that developers were forced to accept.
The most dramatic changes came in the EU, where the Digital Markets Act required Apple to allow iPhone and iPad apps to be sold through third-party app stores. Apple went to great lengths to make this option as unattractive as possible for developers, in what has been described as an act of malicious compliance, and it is likely that it will be forced to change its terms, but the law at least meant that the principle was established.
In the US, Apple suffered a smaller loss when a case brought by Epic Games resulted in the company being told that it must allow developers to link to alternative ways to buy content in-app. The company again complied with this requirement to protect its commissions, and the judge in that case indicated that Apple would likely be found in breach of its ruling.
Apple class action to proceed
Last year, a class action lawsuit was brought against Apple in the UK on behalf of 1,566 British app developers, which also alleged that Apple's monopoly on iPhone apps forced them to accept unreasonable levels of commission. The lawsuit has since been expanded to represent around 13,000 developers.
Apple has tried twice to block the lawsuit. The first attempt was to have a judge throw out the case on the grounds that a UK court should not have jurisdiction over commissions taken on app sales made outside the UK. That argument was rejected earlier this year.
The Cupertino company subsequently appealed to the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), asking it to block the case. Bloomberg reports that the CAT has now rejected that application.
The iPhone maker could be on the hook for paying up to £785 million in fees to around 13,000 developers, according to Sean Ennis, a professor of British competition policy who is leading the case. Judges at the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal paved the way for the case to proceed by rejecting the US firm's arguments to block the case.
Ennis is well placed to take the case forward, having previously held positions at both the European Commission and the US Department of Justice.
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