APPLE TRIES TO BURY LAWSUIT

US SUPREME Court justices yesterday were expected to take up Apple’s effort to bury a lawsuit seeking damages from the company for allegedly monopolising the market for iPhone software applications and forcing consumers to overpay. The justices will hear arguments in Apple’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to revive the proposed class-action lawsuit by a group of iPhone users. The lawsuit accused the Cupertino, California-based technology company of violating federal antitrust laws by requiring apps to be sold through the company’s App Store and then taking a 30 percent commission from the purchases. The case hinges on how the justices will apply one of its past decisions to the claims against Apple. That 1977 ruling limited damages for anti-competitive conduct to those directly overcharged rather than indirect victims who paid an overcharge passed on by others. The iPhone users, including lead plaintiff Robert Pepper of Chicago, filed the suit in a California federal court in 2011, claiming Apple’s monopoly leads to inflated prices compared to if apps were available from other sources. Although developers set the prices of their apps, Apple collects the payments from iPhone users, keeping a 30 percent commission on each purchase. One area of dispute in the case is whether app developers recoup the cost of that commission by passing it on to consumers. Developers earned more than $26 billion (R359.35bn) in 2017, a 30 percent increase over 2016, according to Apple. The company, backed by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration as well as the US Chamber of Commerce, told the justices that siding with the iPhone users who filed the lawsuit would threaten the burgeoning field of e-commerce. | Reuters