American tech giant Apple is facing a $1 billion class action lawsuit brought by more than 1,500 app developers in the UK over its App Store fees. According to a report by the news agency Reuters early Wednesday (July 25), the lawsuit at the Competition Appeal Tribunal is being brought by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the OECD, on behalf of 1,566 app developers.
Ennis said Apple’s charges to app developers are excessive, and only possible due to its monopoly on the distribution of apps onto iPhones and iPads. “The charges are unfair in their own right and constitute abusive pricing. They harm app developers and also app buyers,” Ennis added.
Reuters reported that Apple’s service business saw revenues grow at a rapid pace in the last few years, and it currently hovers around $20 billion per quarter. However, the commissions of 15% to 30% that the company charges some app makers for the use of an in-app payment system have been criticised by app developers and targeted by antitrust regulators in several countries.
Spain imposes fines on Apple, Amazon
A week back, Spain’s antitrust watchdog said that it had imposed fines of $218.03 million on Amazon and Apple for colluding to limit the online sale of devices from Apple and competitors in the country.
Apple was fined $159 million and Amazon over $55 million. The two companies have two months to appeal the decision. In a statement, the watchdog CNMC said, “The two companies restricted without justification the number of sellers of Apple products on the Amazon website in Spain.”
Over 90% of the existing retailers who were using Amazon’s marketplace to sell Apple devices were blocked as a result, the statement added.
Amazon also reduced the capacity of retailers in the European Union (EU) based outside Spain to access Spanish customers, and restricted the advertising Apple’s competitors were allowed to place on its website when users searched for Apple products, the statement further said.
(With inputs from agencies)
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