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Apple Hit With Multibillion-Euro Lawsuit for 'Overcharging' App Store Users

MysticCow said:
It's allowed in the USA. You can have multiple models on the same floor with the same salesperson selling all models.

Exceptions exist, i.e. new car dealers (who contract with one company and can only sell what is stated in their contract).
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I7guy said:
No. New car (not used car) sales are fairly regulated.
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How strange. A contract demanding you sell only from one brand isn’t legally binding. The manufacturer would have to open up their own store if they want to only sell their own cars.

And I’m talking about new cars delivered directly from the manufacturer
 
The sad thing is only lawyers are going to "win" in this case. If Apple has to pay anything it's going to be passed down to it's customers. The article should read "Apple customers are being sued because some greedy lawyer feels they were overcharged"
 
Sophisticatednut said:
How strange. A contract demanding you sell only from one brand isn’t legally binding. The manufacturer would have to open up their own store if they want to only sell their own cars.

And I’m talking about new cars delivered directly from the manufacturer
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Wait you're saying that new car dealers in the USA can sell brands from competing manufactures? I'm not saying you're wrong but I've never seen it so if there's no contract to prohibit it then the manufactures must have found a way to make it difficult.

I just want this in fast food. I want McDonald's to be forced to sell me a BK Whopper 🤣
 
Sophisticatednut said:
How strange. A contract demanding you sell only from one brand isn’t legally binding. The manufacturer would have to open up their own store if they want to only sell their own cars.

And I’m talking about new cars delivered directly from the manufacturer
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You're not going to find Teslas' sold beside Hondas and Hondas sold beside Teslas. For new car purchases. It is strange.
 
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russell_314 said:
The sad thing is only lawyers are going to "win" in this case. If Apple has to pay anything it's going to be passed down to it's customers. The article should read "Apple customers are being sued because some greedy lawyer feels they were overcharged"
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It’s okey, lawyer earning are capped to not encourage frivolous lawsuits and law firms can’t legally drive a case without an organization or legal person giving them the case

Having a good lawyer, or a huge number of lawyers, on your case isn’t going to do you a whole lot of good in a civil law system. All lawyers know the law, and so do the courts. Most civil law systems don’t employ jurys to nearly the same extent as case law systems, so lawyers will have to convince professionals, not people picked up off the street; emotional arguments will make you more likely to lose a case since they hint that facts are not on your side. (Also, common law systems tend to be way more complex; the text of Obamacare alone, for instance, is longer than the entirety of the laws of Sweden.)

But primarily, it has to do with the concept of “punitive damages”. Most countries don’t have them. When you sue, you can expect to get back whatever money you lost in the first place, plus your court costs, and maybe a “pain and suffering” payment of a couple of thousand dollars, in case there was actual pain involved.
 
russell_314 said:
Wait you're saying that new car dealers in the USA can sell brands from competing manufactures? I'm not saying you're wrong but I've never seen it so if there's no contract to prohibit it then the manufactures must have found a way to make it difficult.

I just want this in fast food. I want McDonald's to be forced to sell me a BK Whopper 🤣
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I’m talking about EU not USA
I7guy said:
You're not going to find Teslas' sold beside Hondas and Hondas sold beside Teslas. For new car purchases. It is strange.
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The reason for that is because Tesla only sell cars in their own stores. And don’t sell to dealers
 
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Sophisticatednut said:
It’s okey, lawyer earning are capped to not encourage frivolous lawsuits and law firms can’t legally drive a case without an organization or legal person giving them the case
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That's the first I've heard of this. These caps must be in the tens of millions because these lawyers get 1/3 of the settlement. Frivolous lawsuits happen all the time in the USA.

Maybe outside of the USA it's different but it's big business here. Often out of court settlements happen because companies are afraid of what could happen. Unlike the criminal system where if you can't afford a lawyer you might get someone that barely passed the bar, with lawsuits even poor people can hire the best lawyers because they get paid based on the settlement.
 
Sophisticatednut said:
I’m talking about EU not USA

The reason for that is because Tesla only sell cars in their own stores. And don’t sell to dealers
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Right and an ios app will only be in the app store although, many apps functionalities are duplicated across platforms. ie, the ios wsj app is only available on the ios app store, but WSJ content is ubiquitously available.
 
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I7guy said:
Side by side? By the same person under the same roof?
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Usually not at the same day but yeah… same employer, same person same roof, maybe separated by some fancy glass passage.

Will you ask next if they use the same toilet during their pause, thats too private dunno, but they probably do. 😜

EU is different, specially we the Krauts in Germany, we still can kickdown those cars here, we have partly no speed limits on our Autobahn, sadly they are getting fuller and fuller. Doesn’t make sense to get a Ferrari with a max speed limit of 120/130km/h. 😀
 
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russell_314 said:
That's the first I've heard of this. These caps must be in the tens of millions because these lawyers get 1/3 of the settlement. Frivolous lawsuits happen all the time in the USA.

Maybe outside of the USA it's different but it's big business here. Often out of court settlements happen because companies are afraid of what could happen. Unlike the criminal system where if you can't afford a lawyer you might get someone that barely passed the bar, with lawsuits even poor people can hire the best lawyers because they get paid based on the settlement.
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Code of Conduct for European Lawyers, which states that lawyers should at all times strive to achieve the most cost-effective resolution of the client’s dispute and advise the client at the appropriate stage as to the desirability of seeking a settlement and/or having recourse to alternative dispute resolution procedures. If clients are eligible to receive legal assistance free of charge or at a reduced rate, lawyers must tell them so.

In EU The loosing side always pay for all the court fees as standard.
And contingent fee arrangements are not permitted so they can’t take any of the settlement. And Treble damages isn’t legal.
I7guy said:
Right and an ios app will only be in the app store although, many apps functionalities are duplicated across platforms. ie, the ios wsj app is only available on the ios app store, but WSJ content is ubiquitously available.
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Still not relevant to what apple believes they have the right to demand.

MysticCow said:
Yes. It. Is.

That's exactly how exclusivity contracts work.
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Yes and exclusionary contracts are rarely legal.

contract law is heavily controlled.
Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) prohibits agreements, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices that have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition. Under Article 101(2) TFEU all such anti-competitive restrictions are void. Under Article 101(3) TFEU, prima facie anti-competitive restrictions may be exempted from the prohibition, where it can be shown that, on balance, the consumer benefits and efficiencies flowing from the restriction outweigh the anti-competitive effects. In particular, Article 101(3) will apply where the agreement:

"contributes to improving the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers a fair share of the resulting benefit, and which does not:

(a) impose on the undertakings concerned restrictions which are not indispensable to the attainment of those objectives;

(b) afford such undertakings the possibility of eliminating competition in respect of a substantial part of the products in question
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Sophisticatednut said:
Code of Conduct for European Lawyers, which states that lawyers should at all times strive to achieve the most cost-effective resolution of the client’s dispute and advise the client at the appropriate stage as to the desirability of seeking a settlement and/or having recourse to alternative dispute resolution procedures. If clients are eligible to receive legal assistance free of charge or at a reduced rate, lawyers must tell them so.

In EU The loosing side always pay for all the court fees as standard.
And contingent fee arrangements are not permitted so they can’t take any of the settlement. And Treble damages isn’t legal.
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I'm not famluar with EU law so maybe this is the case. In the USA the only people "eligible to receive legal assistance free of charge or at a reduced rate" are criminal defendants that are deemed too poor to hire a lawyer. Civil lawyers will always go for the highest payoff possible. Maybe Apple will be protected a little bit if this is shown to be a frivolous or baseless lawsuit. It would be nice to see people who make these lawsuits pay up.
 
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russell_314 said:
I'm not famluar with EU law so maybe this is the case. In the USA the only people "eligible to receive legal assistance free of charge or at a reduced rate" are criminal defendants that are deemed too poor to hire a lawyer. Civil lawyers will always go for the highest payoff possible. Maybe Apple will be protected a little bit if this is shown to be a frivolous or baseless lawsuit. It would be nice to see people who make these lawsuits pay up.
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well one of the great things is that court fees are very low in EU compared to USA.

Here you have the ruling between ACM and apple in December if apple wins. Barely 10.000€ in total costs.
Request conclusion
31. The preliminary relief judge will make the provisional measures to be stated below.

32. ACM must reimburse it for the court fee paid by Apple.

33. Furthermore, ACM must be ordered to pay Apple's legal costs. The court in preliminary relief proceedings determines the costs of the proceedings on the basis of the Administrative Costs Decree as follows:
†
an amount of € 7,480 for legal assistance provided professionally by a third party
(2 points for submitting the petitions, 0.5 points for appearing at the pre-trial hearing, 0.5 points for the reply and 2 points for appearing at the hearings, with a value per point of €748 and weighting factor 2) ;
†
an amount of € 220 for interpreting costs (5 hours at € 44 per hour).
The request for reimbursement of the costs of CRA's report is rejected by the preliminary relief judge because that report has not contributed to the assessment of a point of dispute on which Apple has been successful.
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Everyone have equal rights when it comes to help if they fulfill some criteria depending on the country.

Well if it’s frivolous lawsuits then apple won’t pay anything, and if they win their cost are payed by the losing side anyway.

One interesting fact is that civil law is generally easier to read and interpret, for example the Obamacare bill contains more words than many EU nations entire law books.
 
Sophisticatednut said:
It's Not an option. Android can't use iMessage, iCloud, Apple Watch, face ID, pages etc.
So if I just want one extra choice, i should discard everything else and use android as a choice...
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I'm not meaning it in a mean or nasty sense, Just that there are so many brands of products that had proprietary features that you buy their brand to get them and if you don't like that brand you don't get those features....Like in the USA If you wanted "OnStar" in your car, you buy a GM...I don't want a GM...They suck, so I can't have OnStar. I was thinking something along those lines.
 
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subi257 said:
I'm not meaning it in a mean or nasty sense, Just that there are so many brands of products that had proprietary features that you buy their brand to get them and if you don't like that brand you don't get those features....Like in the USA If you wanted "OnStar" in your car, you buy a GM...I don't want a GM...They suck, so I can't have OnStar. I was thinking something along those lines.
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Yea I know. But if you buy GM and you wish they used android auto or allowed it to be installed, then I can’t tell you to go and buy a different car considering your main reason for having it is the GM one star service just because you had a smaller complaint.

Same with iPhones. We use them for many great features, but wish that it would allow side loading or allow difrent payment systems in apps. You can’t equally say I should buy android and lose 99 features I love and exchange it for 99 problems but side loading isn’t one
 
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Sophisticatednut said:
Fishy for what possible reason?
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Just agreeing with the previous guy. I am not convinced that this is a legitimate organization. They can be just collecting users' data for their own purposes. On the other hand, a legitimate parent company could have registered a new company for a major class action lawsuit like that. So I am conflicted and did not proceed with giving them my details.

Do you have any thoughts on this?
 
boryagin said:
Just agreeing with the previous guy. I am not convinced that this is a legitimate organization. They can be just collecting users' data for their own purposes. On the other hand, a legitimate parent company could have registered a new company for a major class action lawsuit like that. So I am conflicted and did not proceed with giving them my details.

Do you have any thoughts on this?
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Well one thing is that lawyer firms can’t file or do any kind of class action lawsuits on the behests of any group in EU

Only consumer groups who’s explicit purpose is to work for the interest of consumers, and that law firms in such jaded can’t ask for a percentage of the winnings as payment. This makes me think it’s legitimate company
 
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