Last week during a session at London International disputes Week (LIDW) I explored the idea of competition and data protection sectors being at the cutting edge of collective and group actions in the U.K. and beyond. At the same time, Apple took to the headlines, facing a competition class action damages claim on behalf of 19.6 million U.K. users of the App Store.
This is the latest claim to be filed since the statutory mechanism for competition class actions was introduced in October 2015. The regime got off to a fairly slow start and no claims have been “certified” by the Competition Appeals Tribunal as being valid to proceed towards trial, but the high profile Supreme Court ruling in December 2020 in the Merricks v Mastercard claim is likely to change this and has given the class action system a real impetus.
