Apple and Amazon managed to reject a class-action lawsuit in the United Kingdom over alleged collusion between the tech giants to remove resellers of new Apple products from the retailer’s website, a court ruled Tuesday.
The lawsuit was brought by consumer law academic Christine Riefa on behalf of around 36 million British consumers who had purchased Apple or Beats products.
Riefa’s lawyers alleged that Apple and Amazon reached a deal in 2018 to ban the vast majority of resellers of Apple and Beats-branded products from Amazon’s UK marketplace, reducing competition for those products.
Read: Chinese competition hits Apple and Samsung: their smartphone shipments fall
Apple and Amazon said the case, worth £494 million ($602 million) plus interest, was meritless and asked the Competition Appeal Tribunal not to allow it to go ahead.
The court ruled that the case could not proceed because Riefa had not demonstrated “sufficient independence or strength” to represent the plaintiff class, in connection with third-party financing for the litigation.
Riefa’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did spokespersons for Apple and Amazon.
Read: Apple faces $1.8 billion lawsuit in the UK due to monopolistic stance in its store
The Competition Appeals Tribunal’s refusal to certify the case, an initial step in this type of litigation, is unusual as the standard for certification is relatively low.
With information from Reuters
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