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Apple is before the Supreme Court to defend its way of selling iPhone apps against consumer claims that the company has monopolized the market abusively.
Judges heard arguments Monday as part of Apple's efforts to end an antitrust lawsuit that could force the iPhone maker to reduce the 30% commission it charges developers to software whose apps are sold exclusively through the Apple App Store. A judge could triple consumer compensation under antitrust law if Apple ultimately lost the lawsuit.
Apple says it does not own apps or sell them. This is the responsibility of software developers.
The complaint says, however, that California's Cupertino, California, has a lot of control over the process, including requiring prices to end in 0.99. And iPhone apps are only available on the App Store.
The question before the Supreme Court is whether Apple can even be sued over the applications, given the previous decisions of the High Court in antitrust cases. In other cases, the judges stated that there must be a direct relationship between the seller and a party complaining of unjustified and anti-competitive prices.
Consumers can choose from over 2 million applications among the 500 apps available when Apple created the App Store in 2008. "Expression" there is an app for that "made now part of the popular lexicon ", Chief Justice John Roberts noted in a 2014 ruling limiting the searches of cell phones without a warrant by the police. Apple has marked the sentence.
But the company says the popularity of iPhone software and its App Store should not overshadow the fact that consumers buy apps from developers, not Apple.
"Apple is a sales and distribution agent for developers," said Apple's lawyers in a case filed in the Supreme Court. "Apple's fundamental argument has always been that any harm suffered by consumers necessarily depends on the decision of the developers' procurement, because Apple does not set the price of applications."
Apple charges a 30% commission on the sale of applications, but it says that any complaint about its pricing structure should come from developers, not consumers, because it is the developers who pay the commission. The Trump administration supports Apple in the high court.
A trial court initially rejected the trial, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals restored it.
Consumer lawyers have asked the High Court to authorize the lawsuit. Consumers "pay the price of monopoly applications directly to Apple via its App Store," wrote the lawyers in their brief to the Supreme Court. This direct relationship makes Apple the ideal target of an antitrust lawsuit, they said.
A win for Apple could seriously limit consumers' ability to sue for antitrust violations, even though Congress envisioned that such lawsuits "would be a central element of antitrust enforcement," warned. antitrust law specialists in a case before the Supreme Court.
A decision in Apple Inc. c. Pepper, 17-204, is expected by the end of spring.
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