Victory for app developers in UK

Professor Barry Rodger has achieved a significant milestone in the fight for UK app developers by securing a £260 million settlement in an opt-out collective action against Google. This case, representing thousands of developers, claimed that Google abused its dominant market position and charged excessive commissions for transactions on its Play Store, impacting revenues from August 2018 onwards. The magnitude of this proposed settlement marks the largest ever secured under the UK’s collective action regime, highlighting the crucial role played by this legal framework in redressing grievances for smaller businesses.

The settlement is subject to the approval of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which will consider the agreement during a hearing on 15 September 2026. The compensation each developer receives will be calculated based on their qualifying sales on the Play Store during the specified period. “For thousands of UK app developers, many of them small businesses, the Play Store is the only realistic route to their customers – and they had little choice but to pay Google's commission,” commented Professor Barry Rodger. “This settlement is a great outcome for them. If approved, meaningful financial compensation will become available for businesses that could never have taken on a company like Google alone.”

Damien Geradin, founding partner of Geradin Partners, expressed gratitude to Professor Rodger for his trust throughout the proceedings. He remarked, “Reaching a settlement of this scale is an important achievement and I hope it will be approved by the CAT in short order. This agreement reflects the valuable role that the UK’s collective proceedings regime can play in securing redress for class members and I am proud of the contribution Geradin Partners makes to this. This is the largest settlement to date since the CAT opt-out regime was launched and it should see money getting into developers’ hands less than three years after the claim was filed.”

The outcome of this landmark case will have significant implications for the app development community in the UK, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises that rely on the Play Store as their primary distribution channel. More detailed information regarding the settlement agreement can be found on the claim’s website, Google Playstore Developers Claim, where the settlement hearing notice for class members is also published.