Apple accused of monopoly on the App Store, yet another class action in the US

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For Apple new judicial troubles are on the way. A group of French developers accused the Cupertino company of having violated United States antitrust lawsabusing his monopoly power in the iOS ecosystem and consequently imposing the existence of a single store for applications.

The class action includes major developers, including Société du Figaro (app of the newspaper Le Figaro) and L’Équipe 24/24 (app of L’Équipe), as reported Reuters. In practice, Apple is accused of having “designed actions to destroy the competition“and to have exploited his dominant position to charge commissions “supra-competitive“by 30% for 14 years, plus commissions of $ 99 per year paid by app developers. This would have:

  • weighed on the pockets of developers
  • reduced consumer choice
  • stifled innovation
WHAT THE DEVELOPERS ARE ASKING FOR

The developers participating in the class action lawsuit in the Federal Court in Oakland, California, are demanding immediate disruption of anti-competitive behavior of Apple, as well as the compensation for damages suffered so far for violating California antitrust law.

There are several points in common of this story with another class action brought forward in July by the law firms Hagens Berman and Sperling & Slater: in that case the object of the dispute was Apple’s monopoly on the digital payment system active on the iPhone, or Apple Pay. According to the indictment, the Cupertino-based company deliberately prevents competition from accessing NFC technology in order to hold a monopoly on mobile payments.

Previously, in November 2021, an agreement had been reached between a group of developers (67 thousand, to be precise) and Apple with the payment by the Californian company of 100 million dollars. Also on that occasion the accusation was of monopoly on the App Store.

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