Apple shot down in appeal to App Store suit

Apple has been denied its attempt to avoid a hearing on the case over its App Store commissions plan.

The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal found that the Cupertino tech giant did not have standing to dismiss class action claims that its App Store was unfairly taking excessive commissions from developers.

Apple had filed the application in January as a big to have the case thrown out both on jurisdiction and procedural grounds.

The decision waives aside a number of claims Apple made in its bid to have the suit dismissed, including claims by the Cupertino tech giant that its App Store was not under UK jurisdiction and that a class action was not applicable as 85% of developers do not even pay a fee to Apple.

"Apple’s applications are unanimously dismissed," the Tribunal said in handing down its ruling.

The case, which was filed in 2023 on behalf of a class of more than 1,800 developers in the UK, seeks to end Apple's practice of collecting a 30% fee from app developers on sales within the walled garden iOS App Store service.

Developers argue that the fees are excessive and unfair given Apple owns and operates the only App Store service.

This is not the first time Apple has been dragged into court over the way in manages the App Store service.

Earlier this year the EU handed the consumer tech giant a $2bn slap on the wrist for denying App Store access to music streaming services that competed with its own.

Perhaps most famously, Apple was sued back in 2020 by Developer Epic games over the 30% commission policy that was being applied to the iOS ports of Epic's wildly popular Fortnight multiplayer battle game.