A week after the DOJ filed a major antitrust case against Apple claiming the tech giant monopolized the smartphone market, a slew of consumers are piling in.

According to Reuters, "at least three proposed class actions have been filed since Friday in California, and New Jersey federal courts by iPhone owners who claim Apple inflated the cost of its products through anticompetitive conduct." All told, the proposed class action suits represent millions of plaintiffs and mirror the very allegations against Apple made by the DOJ: that the company suppressed messaging apps and digital wallet tech that would have added competition to the market.

For its part, Apple has already vowed to fight the DOJ's suit, and surely these class actions will be no different. As an Apple statement reads: the DOJ "lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets. If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple—where hardware, software, and services intersect. …It would also set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”

Earlier this month, Apple settled another class action suit, this one brought by shareholders who alleged CEO Tim Cook mislead them about falling iPhone demand in China. The settlement was $490 million.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the EU has already fined Apple 1.8 billion Euros for breaking anti-competiton laws with its music streaming service, writes the BBC. Now, the EU is investigating the Cupertino firm for restricting user choice and blocking apps from freely communicating with their customers.

With all these legal actions piling up, the New York Times notes that these "troubles are testing the resiliency of Apple’s brand and undermining its business dominance, even though Apple’s products remain popular and continue to power an extremely profitable business."

“In past major antitrust cases, the real danger for the company is that the focus of attention becomes winning the antitrust lawsuits instead of winning customers and doing your job. …It slows you down. It’s a real drag," Wiliam Kovacic, director of the Competition Law Center at George Washington University, [tells CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/22/apple-doj-antitrust-suit-company-faces-years-of-distraction.html#:~:text=The U.S. Department of Justice,"walled garden" business model.).

Epic V. Apple

Even though Apple won its case against Epic games regarding the App Store, the company is now accusing Apple of not being in compliance with a judge's injunction in the ruling. Most notable, however, is that Microsoft and Meta have written amicus briefs for the case against Apple. As The Verge reports: "the amici say that Apple’s 12 to 27 percent fee on external purchases defeats the purpose of the new requirement since it’s only a few percentage points below what developers would otherwise be required to pay for in-app purchases. The external purchase fee could make it unrealistic for developers to even set up an external payments system, given that other transaction costs they might incur through that route could eliminate any of the 3 percent gains they’d get from moving away from Apple’s system. Plus, customers are unlikely to choose the external option if it’s the same price or higher."

THE VERDICT:

As the Times stated, Apple remains one of the largest, most popular, and most profitable brands on Earth. So, yes, it will most likely be able to handle all these major suits at once. In fact, the argument could be made that such a behemoth would court (pardon the pun) so much legal scrutiny.