‘EXCESSIVE’

Apple Hit With $1B Class Action Lawsuit Over ‘Abusive’ App Store Fees

The class action is being brought by more than 1,500 app developers in the United Kingdom.

Apple is being sued for $1 billion by a group of more than 1,500 app developers in the United Kingdom over the company’s allegedly “excessive” App Store fees. The class action lawsuit accuses the tech giant of charging some app makers an “anticompetitive” commission fee of up to 30 percent on transactions made on its platforms. It argues that the funds could better be used to drive innovation. The suit is being brought on behalf of the developers by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. In a statement, Ennis said that the charges were only possible because of Apple’s “monopoly on the distribution of apps” on Apple products. “The charges are unfair in their own right, and constitute abusive pricing,” he said. Apple has previously said that 85 percent of app developers do not pay any commission, according to Reuters.