Apple and Amazon get $600 million UK lawsuit dismissed

Apple and Amazon have been accused of price-fixing

A lawsuit claiming that Apple and Amazon colluded to fix the price of Apple products and reduce competition, has been rejected by a UK tribunal.

In one of three similar cases accusing Apple and Amazon of price fixing, the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has ruled that the case cannot continue to trial. The decision to dismiss the case is reportedly an unusual one as the tribunal more often allows claimants to pursue cases further.

In this situation, the mass lawsuit — Britain’s equivalent of a class-action one — was brought by consumer law academic and professor of law, Christine Riefa. She brought the suit on behalf of potentially 36 million British consumers who bought Apple or Beats products.

Riefa maintained that Apple and Amazon reached an agreement to collude over price fixing in 2018. She valued the case at $602 million, plus interest.

Apple and Amazon argued that the case was without merit. The two companies asked that the tribunal refuse to allow it to proceed.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has now done exactly that. It concluded that the claimant had not demonstrated “sufficient independence or robustness” to represent an entire class of claimants.

In a separate case based in the US, Apple and Amazon again asked for a dismissal but were refused in June 2023. This case specified that following Apple’s 2018 deal with Amazon, the number Apple resellers on the service dropped 98% from almost 600, to 7.