A UK tribunal is considering a bid by Apple to have a $1 billion lawsuit over App Store fees be dismissed on the grounds that the case’s argument is “unsustainable.”
In July 2023, a class action suit was brought against Apple on behalf of 1,566 UK-based developers. It argued that Apple is abusing its monopoly position, and charging excessive fees.
According to Reuters, the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has now heard from Apple’s lawyers. They contend that the case’s argument is “unsustainable,” because 85% of developers on its App Store do not pay any commission fees at all.
Further, Apple’s lawyer Daniel Piccinin argues that developers cannot have a claim in the UK unless it were over purchases customers made in the UK’s version of the App Store. Piccinin says that would only apply to a small minority of the case’s claimants.
However, the claimants’ lawyer Paul Stanley, has reportedly said in court filings that Apple “has come to the UK to offer services to UK businesses on a UK market and has abused its position by overcharging them.”
The lawsuit was brought by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD.) Previously he has said that “Apple’s charges to app developers are excessive, and only possible due to its monopoly on the distribution of apps onto iPhone and iPad.”
“The charges are unfair in their own right, and constitute abusive pricing,” he continued when the lawsuit was filed. “They harm app developers and also app buyers.”
At the time of the original filing, an Apple spokesperson told AppleInsider that the company has never increased fees in the (then) 15 years of the App Store. That point is disingenuous since the fee is a percentage of app costs which have risen, though.
This story originally appeared on Appleinsider
