Apple and Amazon are facing a revived UK consumer competition claim after the Competition Appeal Tribunal certified allegations concerning sales of Apple products through Amazon’s marketplace for Competition Appeal Tribunal Class Action Reform Proposals.

The claim alleges that Apple and Amazon agreed in 2018 to restrict which third-party sellers could offer Apple and Beats-branded products through Amazon’s UK marketplace, reducing competition and causing consumers to pay higher prices.

The tribunal allowed the part of the case concerning purchases made through Amazon to proceed but refused certification of a wider claim covering products bought directly from Apple and other retailers.

The claimant estimates that the surviving Amazon-marketplace claim could be worth between £289 million and £306 million including interest.

Apple and Amazon deny wrongdoing.

Apple said it strongly disagreed with the allegations and maintained that its agreement with Amazon was intended to tackle counterfeit products being sold through the marketplace.

Amazon welcomed the tribunal’s rejection of the wider portion of the case and said the remaining claim was without merit.

The litigation is being brought by JLP A&A Class Representative Limited, with consumer campaigner Justin Le Patourel acting as the proposed class representative.

The claimant argues that the 2018 arrangements significantly reduced the number of independent resellers able to sell Apple products through Amazon and weakened competition between sellers.

Mrs Justice Kelyn Bacon, sitting with two other tribunal members, concluded that the theory relating to purchases through Amazon was sufficiently credible to satisfy the certification test.

The tribunal described the On-Amazon claim as “plausible, credible and grounded in the facts” and said there was a realistic basis for arguing that restrictions imposed on resellers could have increased the prices paid by consumers.

However, the tribunal reached a different conclusion on the proposed Off-Amazon claim.

That part of the case alleged that the same conduct also increased prices for Apple products purchased directly from Apple and from other retailers.

The tribunal declined to certify those allegations, finding that the proposed causal link rested on a more complex and speculative theory of harm and was not supported by a sufficiently credible methodology at this stage.

The ruling does not establish that Apple or Amazon breached competition law.

Certification determines whether claims can proceed collectively, not whether the defendants are ultimately liable or whether consumers suffered the alleged losses.

The case follows an earlier attempt to bring substantially similar proceedings led by consumer-law academic Christine Riefa.

In January 2025, the Competition Appeal Tribunal refused to certify that application after concluding that the proposed class representative did not satisfy the requirement to act fairly and adequately in the interests of class members. The ruling included concerns surrounding the proposed representation and funding arrangements rather than a determination of the underlying competition allegations.

The claim was subsequently refiled through JLP A&A Class Representative Limited with Le Patourel replacing Riefa as the proposed representative.

The underlying allegations rely on the Chapter I prohibition in the Moy Park v Visa and Mastercard Claim Stayed | Lawyer Monthly and, for relevant conduct before the end of 2020, Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Both provisions prohibit agreements between businesses that unlawfully restrict competition.

For competition lawyers, the decision illustrates the importance of economic evidence at the certification stage of UK collective actions.

A claimant does not have to prove liability before receiving a collective proceedings order, but it must put forward a sufficiently credible and workable methodology for establishing loss across the relevant class.

Here, the tribunal accepted that threshold for purchases through Amazon but not for the alleged effect on prices elsewhere in the retail market.

Apple and Amazon will now have the opportunity to contest the substantive allegations as the certified portion of the proceedings moves forward.