The Competition Appeal Tribunal has approved the GBP 260 million (about USD 350 million) settlement between Google and the class of UK app developers. The approval hearing in case 1673/7/7/24, Professor Barry Rodger v Alphabet Inc and Others, was listed for 15 September with one day in reserve, and the approval became public on 16 September 2026. We covered the terms in our earlier alert, while the deal was still waiting for the tribunal’s review. It now binds every class member who has not opted out.
The split is unchanged. GBP 160 million goes into the compensation pot for developers, and GBP 100 million is set aside for the third-party funder (Bench Walk Advisors), the after-the-event insurers and the legal team. Google made no admission of liability. Class representative Professor Barry Rodger called the outcome historic and said it is the largest payout approved by the tribunal in the 11 years of the UK collective competition regime. By comparison, the Merricks v Mastercard settlement approved in May 2025 was GBP 200 million.
Approval is a narrow exercise. The tribunal asks whether the terms are just and reasonable and controls how the money is distributed. The GBP 100 million for costs was only what the parties proposed. Under the funding agreement, the funder’s return cannot exceed the share of proceeds the tribunal approves, and that return was stepped: one times the capital outlay for the first 18 months, twice after that, and four times from the first day of a liability trial. The deal came about a month before the trial listed for 28 September, so the top step never applied. Whether Google’s commission was excessive, or its limits on other distribution channels unlawful, is a question this case will no longer answer.
Class arithmetic helps set expectations. Case materials put the class at roughly 2,200 UK developers, of whom 1,520 to 1,672 (70 to 77 percent) are estimated to have lost less than GBP 10,000. The aggregate claim was valued at GBP 374 million to 859 million before interest, and at GBP 425 million to 1.036 billion with compound interest. The GBP 160 million pot is therefore about 15 percent of the top valuation and about 43 percent of the lowest pre-interest figure.
The last six months of the case help explain why it ended in a payment. On 27 February 2026, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Evans v Barclays Bank [2025] UKSC 48, Google applied to move the highest-value developers onto an opt-in basis while the rest of the class stayed opt-out. The application first targeted the 25 largest claimants and was later cut back to five. The tribunal refused it on 4 June 2026, with reasons given in [2026] CAT 49. The concentration of claim value was already known at certification, and carving out the largest claimants risked the collapse of the funding and, with it, the proceedings.
On 10 June Google wrote to 17 of the 25 largest class members, 13 of them outside working hours, asking for a substantive response by 5pm the next day. On 12 June it filed 17 disclosure applications. Hodge Malek KC granted a narrowed application on 9 July ([2026] CAT 58) but recorded that such applications are not to be treated as routine and must not encourage class members to opt out. DAZN Group Limited opted out anyway, and other opt-out requests followed. Any company that may sit inside a class suing a platform should take note: a defendant can obtain disclosure from individual class members even in opt-out proceedings.
Being in the class does not mean being paid automatically, a point we made when the deal was announced. Money will go to developers who submit a valid claim through the claims administrator, Angeion, so it is worth watching for class notices and filing within the deadline set for distribution.
Press coverage tends to describe the class period loosely. It starts in August 2018 (the tribunal’s documents give both 22 and 23 August) and, after an extension, ends on 31 July 2026 rather than on the claim date of 23 August 2024. Developers whose first qualifying sale fell between 23 August 2024 and 31 July 2026 have a separate domicile date of 31 July 2026. Their deadline to opt out was 4pm on 14 September 2026 and has now passed.
Each developer’s payout depends on its qualifying sales on Google Play during the class period. A claim is easier to support when revenue and withheld commission data have been reconstructed and documented for every year.
The settlement resolves developer claims only. A parallel collective action for UK Android users, brought by Elizabeth Coll, covers about 20 million consumers and is valued at around GBP 1 billion. According to the class representative’s team, the trial starts on 5 October 2026 and is due to finish in December. Its class period runs from 1 October 2015 to 31 July 2026, so it targets the same commissions, looked at through pass-on to consumers. The tribunal had originally listed both cases for a joint trial from 28 September.
The Apple case also continues, and our earlier alert covers it in detail. On 23 October 2025 the same tribunal, in Dr Rachael Kent’s claim, held that Apple’s 30 percent App Store commission was an excessive and unfair price ([2025] CAT 67), putting class damages at around GBP 1.5 billion. The CAT refused Apple permission to appeal, and Apple turned to the Court of Appeal, which has listed a rolled-up hearing in a window between 2 November 2026 and 24 March 2027 to decide permission and the appeal together.
Claims against Google are also moving beyond app stores. On 5 August 2026 the tribunal certified on an opt-out basis a claim of around GBP 5 billion brought by Or Brook Class Representative Limited for some 880,000 UK advertisers that paid for Google search ads between 2011 and 2025. Here, too, the tribunal rejected Google’s push for opt-in.
A GBP 260 million settlement against a top valuation of about GBP 1 billion shows how far the pleaded figure can sit from the actual recovery. The valuation in a claim form works better as an opening position in negotiations than as a forecast of what class members will receive.
The parties set aside up to GBP 100 million, about 38 percent of the settlement, for funding and litigation costs, and the tribunal controls the final share. That ratio is a useful benchmark when deciding whether joining collective proceedings, or bringing your own claim, makes economic sense.
Google settled about a month before trial, so the case contains no findings on the market or on the level of the commission. Developers looking for judicial findings to rely on in other disputes will get more from the Kent v Apple judgment, which analyses the market and the commission in detail. That judgment is under appeal, though, and has no binding force outside the UK.
The class period runs to July 2026 and takes in years when Google had already changed its rates: from July 2021 it cut the fee to 15 percent on a developer’s first USD 1 million of annual revenue. Lower rates going forward do not close off claims for earlier periods.
The Arbitration & IT Disputes practice at REVERA Law Group can check whether your company falls within the class definition, prepare the claim and document the amount. We can also assess your position in other collective proceedings against platforms and review your distribution and monetisation terms on Google Play and the App Store.
