Apple, Amazon fight off $600 million UK lawsuit over alleged ‘collusion’

LONDON (Reuters) – Apple (NASDAQ:) and Amazon (NASDAQ:) have successfully fought off a mass lawsuit in Britain over alleged collusion between the tech giants to remove resellers of new Apple products from Amazon’s website, a tribunal ruled on Tuesday.

The lawsuit was brought by consumer law academic Christine Riefa on behalf of around 36 million British consumers who had bought Apple or Beats products.

Riefa’s lawyers alleged that Apple and Amazon reached an agreement in 2018 to bar the vast majority of resellers of Apple and Beats-branded products from Amazon’s marketplace in the United Kingdom (TADAWUL:), reducing competition for those products.

Apple and Amazon said the case, valued at 494 million pounds ($602 million) plus interest, was without merit and asked the Competition Appeal Tribunal to refuse to let it proceed.

The tribunal ruled that the case could not continue because Riefa had not demonstrated “sufficient independence or robustness” to represent the claimant class, in relation to third-party funding for the litigation.

Riefa’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did spokespeople for Apple and Amazon.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal’s refusal to certify the case, an early step in such litigation, is unusual as the bar for certification is relatively low.