"If you obtained a monopoly legitimately, you're allowed to charge high prices," said Randal Picker, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. antitrust law does not consider a dominant firm charging high prices to be anticompetitive in itself.Īpple argues that whatever dominant position it may have in mobile software is an outgrowth of its creation of both the iPhone and a curated App Store that makes consumer comfortable. American courts have been reluctant to dive into setting specific rates, in large part because unlike Europe, the prevailing interpretation of U.S. "Plaintiffs are often unsuccessful because courts read Kodak narrowly at times,” Waller said.Įpic also faces hurdles in its contention that Apple's in-app payment commissions are too high at 30% and could be as much as 10 times lower if market forces prevailed. Spencer Waller, a competition law professor at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, said the Kodak decision has had mixed success in subsequent cases.
Supreme Court decision that rejected efforts by Kodak to force owners of its copying machines to use Kodak repair services. courts, legal experts said.įor example, in arguing that iPhones are a software market unto themselves, Epic relies partly on a 1992 U.S. "But it has already achieved a lot of its purpose, which is drawing attention to some of Apple's practices that many developers see as abusive."Įpic's arguments draw on major antitrust cases against Microsoft (MSFT.O), Eastman Kodak (KODK.N) and American Express (AXP.N), but apply those precedents in new ways that have not been tested in U.S. "It's not a super-strong suit - I don't think they are likely to win," said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt Law School. Apple is abusing that power, Epic argues, by forcing developers to use Apple's in-app payment systems - which charge commissions of up to 30% - and to submit to app-review guidelines the gaming company says discriminate against products that compete with Apple's own. Epic alleges Apple has such a strong lock on those customers that the app store constitutes a distinct market for software developers over which Apple has monopoly power.
0 kommentar(er)
