WASHINGTON: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday gave the go-ahead for a lawsuit by consumers accusing Apple Inc of monopolizing the market for iPhone software applications and forcing them to overpay, rejecting the company's bid to escape claims that its practices violate federal antitrust law.
The company, backed by the Trump administration, argued that it was only acting as an agent for app developers, who set their own prices and pay Apple's commission. Apple had argued that a Supreme Court ruling allowing the case to proceed could pose a threat to e-commerce, a rapidly expanding segment of the U.S. economy worth hundreds of billions of dollars in annual sales.
Developers earned more than US$26 billion in 2017, a 30 percent increase over 2016, according to Apple.