French publishers' U.S. antitrust class action against Apple is largely dismissed, making it economically irrelevant short of successful appeal: Northern District of California

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California just denied in part--and in economic terms, almost completely--a U.S. antitrust class action brought on behalf of leading French publishers such as Le Figaro and L'Équipe (about that one, see my personal note toward the end).

Here's the decision, which I'll explain briefly:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23977262-23-09-13-order-on-motion-to-dismiss-le-figaro-et-al-v-apple: Société du Figaro et al. v. Apple (case no. 4:22-cv-4437-YGR, N.D. Cal.): Order granting part and denying in part APple's motion to dismiss with partial leave to amend

The court gives the French publishers three weeks (until October 4) to amend their complaint, but they can only amend limited parts that won't change anything about the fact that there's no more serious money left for them to be made even if they won. But in order to turn this into something that has significant economic potential, they need a successful appeal.

In this first reaction, I'm not going to take a position on whether I agree with Judge Gonzalez Rogers. I disagreed with key parts of her Epic Games v. Apple ruling (which is now going to be appealed to the Supreme Court), but her dismissal of Pistacchio v. Apple, a class action over Apple Arcade, was well-reasoned (at least the market definition part).

The introductory part of the decision indicates between the lines a bit of an annoyance with the fact that certain class-action lawyers brought this case shortly after setting a U.S. developer class action against Apple over largely the same issues. This here looked like a double-dipping (as far as the lawyers--not the parties--are concerned). But that does not, in and of itself, render the entire case meritless.

The economically biggest part is that Judge YGR does not allow the French publishers to sue in U.S. court for damages relating to foreign sales. Those publishers obviously have some U.S. revenues, as there are French expats and other people who read one or more of those publications. But obviously most of the money they make is generated in France, followed by other French-speaking parts of the world (such as Québec).

If they go ahead now and take this to trial, the maximum damages award they could ever realistically hope for would still not offset litigation costs. A victory would be somewhat symbolic. The only value they could get value out of a win related to their U.S. revenues would be that this might persuade a French court to rule against Apple in a similar way. But is that going to be worth it? I doubt it.

Earlier this year I highlighted the problem that Apple doesn'T want to be liable in any jurisdiction. Epic Games experienced the same. If app makers sue outside the U.S., Apple says only U.S. courts have jurisdiction, and in the U.S., Apple points to the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act (FTAIA), which is a law that was enacted to prevent extraterritorial overreach by U.S. courts.

Based on this U.S. decision, the French publishers and others will find it easier to convince foreign courts that they have jurisdiction over App Store abuse claims relating to those non-U.S. markets, despite a choice-of-jurisdiction clause in the contract Apple imposes on app developers. So there may be something positive here.

Another potential strategy for the French publishers would be to bring in additional plaintiffs on the occasion of the amendment, which could be publishers with very substantial U.S. revenues.

When I first commented on the French publishers' U.S. class action, I found one part of the complaint particularly intriguing: they raised the issue of App Tracking Transparency (ATT), a money and power grab by Apple under the pretext of privacy. Judge Gonzalez Rogers allows the plaintiffs to amend their ATT claim if they bring an amended complaint. That may now be another reason to widen the class definition and include publishers with substantial U.S. sales (an amendmend that Apple would presumably oppose, but the plaintiffs could try to get it approved by the court). For publishers, ATT is a huge problem. So maybe the focus will change a little bit. However, the alternative would be to drop this one and bring a new one with U.S. publishers (or UK and other publishers with substantial U.S. revenues) on board from the start, and with a focus on ATT.

I guess something will happen. I don't expect this complaint to just be dropped at this stage without an appeal, amendment, or a new complaint with an ATT focus (or even a combination of two or more measures of that kind).

Personal note: As I mentioned L'Équipe: while I currently have no paying subscription to any media outlet, simply because there are too many around the globe that are relevant to me at different times, L'Équipe is actually one of two publications I plan to subscribe to for the purpose of brushing up my French. I actually learned most of my Spanish from sports newspapers AS, Marca, and Sport. If I subscribed to it through their Android apps, Google would tax my subscription fees...

Share|

Apple argues foreign app developers cannot bring antitrust lawsuits ANYWHERE on Earth: developer agreement requires suing in California, but FTAIA allegedly immunizes Apple

In the previous post I acknowledged that Apple has a reasonable basis to challenge the UK Competition & Market Authority's market investigation reference over mobile browser engines and cloud gaming. But in some other respects, Apple is the Evil Empire, extremely unreasonable, and acts in highly abusive ways.

A class-action lawsuit brought by French publishers over the way Apple's App Store terms and policies affect them puts Apple's utter unreasonableness on full display. Apple unilaterally imposes a forum-selection clause on app developers: Northern District of California. But when foreign developers actually sue there, as do those French media companies, Apple argues that the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act (FTAIA) bars such claims.

As Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney once mentioned in a tweet I haven't been able to find again (search is an area in which Twitter has huge room for improvement, and using Google to search Twitter is also suboptimal), Apple's position taking in different jurisdictions often amount to denying liability under the antitrust laws of any jurisdiction. Epic filed lawsuits in the U.S. (where a Ninth Circuit panel is now working on its decision), UK, and Australia, and Apple then moved to dismiss or stay the foreign cases in light of the California action, but in California argued that any remedies could not apply to foreign markets.

If one thinks it through, Apple's positions across jurisdictions are just another expression of the neofeudalist attitude of an arrogant and abusive organization that knows no shame: the tyrannical dictator forces developers to sign agreements that bar them from suing anywhere other than in the Northern District of California, and then tells foreign developers serving foreign target markets that they have no rights under the antitrust laws of the United States "because FTAIA".

In the end, only entities who are not bound by Apple's unilaterally-imposed developer agreement would be able to bring antitrust cases in foreign jurisdictions: competition authorities and, maybe, consumers.

Heads I win, tails you lose. Or: What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine, too. That behavior, in and of itself, constitutes an abuse.

The case (Société du Figaro et al. v. Apple) was already filed in August (in the Northern District of California), Apple responded with a motion to dismiss in October, and as I suggested at the time, the complaint was subsequently amended:

Société du Figaro et al. v. Apple (case no. 4:22-cv-4437-YGR, N.D. Cal.), December 2, 2022: Plaintiffs' First Amended Class Action Complaint for Violations of the Sherman Act, California Unfair Competition Law, and California Cartwright Act

On Friday, Apple renewed its motion to dismiss:

Société du Figaro et al. v. Apple (case no. 4:22-cv-4437-YGR, N.D. Cal.), January 20, 2023: Defendant Apple Inc.'s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint

Apple describes "plaintiffs' purely foreign claims" as "[t]ransactions between French developers and foreign consumers, made on foreign App store storefronts, in foreign currency, and through a foreign (non-party) Apple entity" as "foreign nonimport commerce, not subject to any FTAIA exception."

Apple says "short shrift" should be given to the French publishers' argument involving the developer agreement's U.S. choice-of-law provision. Apple points to a Second Circuit decision (Lotes Co. v. Hon Hai Precision Industry, the latter being Foxconn, Apple's largest contract manufacturer) where the holding was that a party to such an agreement "remain[s] free to argue that, under the FTAIA, the Sherman Act does not apply to or regulate the conduct at issue in this case."

The 2nd Cir. decision is not binding in the 9th Cir., and therefore not on Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. One can reasonably disagree with it. But this is just one of several arguments made by the French publishers as to why the FTAIA does not bar their U.S. federal lawsuit with respect to foreign sales.

Those companies also offer their apps to U.S. consumers, but presumably their U.S. revenues are minuscule compared to the ones in France and other French-speaking countries and regions. So the FTAIA would not dispose of the entire case, but if Apple prevailed on its FTAIA argument, it would render the litigation commercially insignificant.

I plan to comment on the other elements of Apple's motion to dismiss as the briefing process unfolds. Apple really doesn't want to deal with litigation over its pernicious App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, and argues that the French publishers still don't get market definition right and, in any event, lack standing to challenge ATT. As for the market definition underlying the publishers' App Store claims, Apple expressly reserves the right to oppose their single-brand market definition, but does not raise that question at the motion-to-dimiss stage. What I think may be the focal point of the discussion at the motion-to-dismiss hearing is Apple's argument that the settlement in the Cameron v. Apple developer class-action litigation resolved the key issues, and now the same law firm (Hagens Berman) is suing Apple again, but with different plaintiffs (and now even challenging the reduced 15% app tax).

I'm one of those developers who consider the Cameron settlement's terms extremely unsatisfactory. The French publishers' case has more potential because that's a group of reasonably large and sophisticated plaintiffs who are not going to settle for a Cameron-style set of terms.

By the way, one developer wrote a letter to Judge YGR earlier this month, complaining that even though he's clearly a member of the class and is entitled to "a substantial sum" per the outcome of the Cameron litigation, he was not contacted about the settlement:

Cameron et al. v. Apple Inc. (case no. 4:19-cv-3074-YGR, N.D. Cal.), January 6, 2023: letter from Lionheart Software LLC

It's unknown whether this was just an oversight or clerical error affecting a single developer or whether there's a more fundamental problem.

Share|