Apple and Amazon face a renewed legal challenge in the UK after the Competition Appeal Tribunal allowed part of a consumer lawsuit alleging anti-competitive restrictions on Apple and Beats product sales through Amazon’s UK marketplace to move forward on September 28, 2026.
The claim concerns agreements reached in 2018 that allegedly restricted which third-party sellers could offer Apple and Beats-branded products through Amazon’s UK marketplace. The proceedings allege breaches of the UK Competition Act 1998 and, for part of the relevant period, Article 101 of EU competition law. The claimant argues that limiting the number of competing resellers reduced competition and caused customers buying through Amazon to pay higher prices.
The tribunal allowed the part of the claim involving Apple products purchased through Amazon’s marketplace to proceed, finding that it had a realistic evidential basis. Judge Kelyn Bacon described the Amazon-related claims as “plausible, credible and grounded in the facts,” while the broader claims involving purchases from Apple and other retailers were rejected as too speculative at this stage.
According to the claimant, the part of the case allowed to proceed is estimated to be worth between £289 million and £306 million, including interest. That figure represents the claimant’s estimated value of the surviving claim; it is not a fine or compensation that Apple and Amazon have already been ordered to pay.
Both companies dispute the allegations. Apple says its agreement with Amazon was intended to tackle counterfeit products being sold through the marketplace rather than restrict legitimate competition. Amazon welcomed the tribunal’s rejection of the wider claims and said the remaining claim is without merit. Separately, Apple has faced other competition scrutiny in Europe, including regulatory pressure that led the company to change how app-tracking consent requests are presented to users. The competition dispute is also separate from Apple’s recent $5.72 billion haptics patent verdict, which concerns alleged patent infringement rather than marketplace competition.
A largely similar collective action brought by consumer law academic Christine Riefa was refused certification in January 2025 after the tribunal raised concerns about whether the proposed class representative met the required authorisation standard. The claim was later refiled with Justin Le Patourel, through JLP A&A Class Representative Limited, as the proposed representative of consumers.
The ruling is therefore a procedural step rather than a final finding of liability. It allows the Amazon marketplace portion of the lawsuit to continue but does not establish that Apple or Amazon violated competition law, nor does it mean affected shoppers are currently entitled to compensation. Those issues would have to be resolved through the continuing proceedings.
