UK app developers are suing Apple for £1 billion (£785m) over App Store fees.
Professor Sean Innes, of the University of East Anglia’s Center for Competition Policy, is filing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 1,566 app creators over the tech giant’s “excessive” fees.
Apple charges some app makers a commission of 15% to 30% when using its in-app payment system — a measure criticized by antitrust regulators in several countries.
Professor Innes said: “Apple’s fees to app developers are excessive, and it’s only possible because of its monopoly on app distribution on iPhones and iPads.
“The charges are unfair in and of themselves, and constitute abusive pricing. They harm app developers as well as app purchasers.”
Apple previously said that 85% of developers in the App Store pay no commission, and that it helps European developers reach markets and customers in 175 countries around the world through the App Store.
Apple’s services business, including Apple Pay, Apple Arcade and the App Store, is ramping up its growth with revenues of around $80bn (£62bn) a year.
In November, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into the dominance of Apple and Google’s mobile browsers in the cloud market.