Apple & Amazon UK face revived price fixing lawsuit

A lawsuit accusing Apple and Amazon of colluding to limit sales of products to consumers in the UK is being revived, with both companies potentially facing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

In 2018, Apple and Amazon reached an agreement that allowed regional Amazon stores to sell Apple and Beats hardware. The agreement has been legally problematic for both tech giants ever since, with one lawsuit coming back from the dead in the UK.

Reuters reports the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal permitted for part of a dismissed consumer lawsuit against Apple and Amazon to resume on Monday. The decision revives the accusations of price fixing and artificially limiting sales, along with the threat of financial penalties for the firms.

Specifically, the tribunal allowed claims relating to Apple products bought through Amazon’s marketplace to proceed. One claim about sales from Apple and other retailers was rejected by the tribunal.

A limiting agreement

The original lawsuit in the UK was a counterpart to another in the United States filed in 2022. It accused Apple and Amazon of making a secret deal in the 2018 agreement.

It was alleged that there would be limitations on independent retailers selling Apple hardware through Amazon. The limitations were apparently anti-consumer due to limiting competition.

The U.S. lawsuit was killed in September 2025, while the UK version was shut down earlier in January 2025. That UK mass lawsuit, the equivalent of a class-action lawsuit, was brought by consumer law academic and professor Christine Riefa.

Riefa’s lawsuit was stopped by the tribunal due to concerns about the proposed class representative and litigation funding. The updated lawsuit, spun up in December 2025, changes the plaintiff to Justin Le Patourel.

The tribunal ruled that there was a reasonable and realistic basis for the lawsuit to argue restrictions on resellers could’ve harmed consumers by raising prices of Apple products on Amazon.

However, there wasn’t enough evidence to support arguments that the actions impacted prices for Apple products sold elsewhere. Judge Kelyn Bacon’s rejection was due to the claims being based on a “complex and speculative theory of harm.”

Disappointment, disagreement, financial threat

A spokesperson for Le Patourel said he welcomed the ruling, but added that it was disappointing that some elements of the claim were not certified.

Apple said that strongly disagreed with the claims. Its agreement with Amazon was intended to fight counterfeit products on the marketplace.

Amazon welcomed the decision, saying that the remaining claim was “without merit.”

To Le Patourel’s legal team, the remaining part of the case could be worth at least 289 million pounds ($383 million) if found in its favor. The earlier version was valued at $602 million.