I assume these type of tech lawsuits will be more and more common.
ATT Collective Action Limited filed a £2 billion lawsuit at London's Competition Appeal Tribunal, stating Apple abused its position through App Tracking Transparency.
The alleged double standard
ATT launched in April 2021 with Apple's iOS 14.5. Open an app for the first time and you get the notification asking whether to allow tracking across other companies' apps and websites. Most people decline.
The claim states third-party developers face two hurdles, data protection law plus Apple's own predefined prompt, while Apple applies looser standards to its own advertising and data collection.
Pope stated "Privacy is an important protection for consumers, but it should be applied fairly and in a way that ensures businesses of all sizes can compete on a level playing field. It cannot become a reason for digital platforms to play by one set of rules while forcing app developers to play by another."
She adds that ATT "was implemented without the transparency and objectivity you would expect from a company in Apple's position, and it resulted in very significant harm to businesses that depend on Apple as a gatekeeper."
Lead solicitor Luke Streatfeild stated "It was imposed unfairly and unilaterally, without consultation, in a manner that damaged British app developers without justification, while allowing Apple's business to flourish."
The number
Apple's advertising skyrocketed from around 1.5 billion dollars in 2020 to roughly 7.4 billion in 2025.
The growth is the claim's foundation. It doesn't prove the allegation, since Apple's ad business was small and had room to grow regardless but it is a striking number.
Who it covers
UK-based app developers who earned advertising revenue in third-party iOS apps or spent money acquiring users are automatically represented.
Mobile games got hit with ATT harder than most sectors. Louise Wooldridge described it as "especially damaging for mature franchises like Angry Birds which rely more heavily on paid advertising for user acquisition," a factor in what went wrong with Sega's 776 million dollar Rovio acquisition.
Apple's position, and the queue
Apple has framed ATT has "important privacy protections" and hasn't commented on this claim.
France and Italy have issued ATT-related fines exceeding £200 million in total. Germany's competition authority forced policy changes last month. Poland and Romania have opened investigations against it.
Hausfeld also won the Rachael Kent case, where the CAT ordered Apple to pay around £1.5 billion over App Store commissions last October, a ruling Apple is appealing. Google settled a separate CAT class action over Android developer charges for £260 million last month.
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