U.S. Supreme Court will hear Apple's appeal of App Store class-action lawsuit
The issue here is very different than people seem to think.<p>The supreme court granted cert on one question:<p>&quot;Whether consumers may sue for antitrust
damages anyone who delivers goods to them,
even where they seek damages based on prices
set by third parties who would be the
immediate victims of the alleged offense.&quot;<p>(This is apple&#x27;s statement of the question, and thus necessarily is tilted in how they see things)<p>The petition summary has more details and is quite short:
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;17-204-petition.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;17-204-...</a><p>There is a circuit split on this issue, which is likely why the supreme court took it.  It&#x27;s mostly about indirect purchasers vs direct purchasers.   Indirect purchasers cannot sue, only direct purchasers can, mainly because it&#x27;s really hard to apportion damages properly.<p>The previous major case on distribution monopolization was an eight circuit case about ticketmaster, Campos v. Ticketmaster Corp,  <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&#x2F;us-8th-circuit&#x2F;1097030.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&#x2F;us-8th-circuit&#x2F;1097030.html</a>.  Section II of that opinion is a fairly readable rundown of the issue of direct vs indirect purchasing and who gets to sue.<p>Ticketmaster held that people paying greater distribution fees to ticketmaster as a result of their monopoly could not sue, as they are indirect purchasers.<p>The ninth circuit, in the apple case, held differently, holding that apple was selling directly to consumers, regardless of whether app developers got to set price.
The opinion, which is also quite readable, is here:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.leagle.com&#x2F;decision&#x2F;infco20170112133" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.leagle.com&#x2F;decision&#x2F;infco20170112133</a>.
Again, i&#x27;d just read the part starting with &quot;plaintiffs are direct purchasers&quot;<p>Personally, i think the dissent in ticketmaster (and the ninth circuit) got it right.  This is also what the ninth circuit explicitly says.
In these models, only the people at the bottom make sense as the people to sue, as when you control distribution carefully like this, they are the only injured party.