Judge Approves Apple's $100M Settlement in Developer Lawsuit, But Questions $27M Attorney Fee

In August of 2021, Apple agreed to make changes to the App Store in order to settle a class-action lawsuit. Judge Yvonne-Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing the case, said yesterday that she will approve the settlement, but she is concerned about the amount that attorneys are planning to charge.

Rogers wants more data on the math behind the $27 million attorney fee requested and how it will affect small developers. She asked for a breakdown of how much less each class member would get if she gave them more money.

She wants to see the numbers because the difference could be significant. In March, Apple pointed out that the fee was higher than the benchmark set by the Ninth Circuit.

The settlement is called the Small Developer Assistance Fund and Apple started accepting claims in January. Apple reminded developers to submit a claim by the May 20th deadline. The historic App Store participation allowed developers to claim between $250 and $30,000.

Approximately 67,000 developers were eligible to apply. Developers who earned less than $100 will be paid a minimum of $250, while those who earned more than $1 million will be paid a higher amount. The number of claims is what determines the minimum payments.

A group of developers accused Apple of using its App Store monopoly to impose "profit-killing" commission. The App Store Small Business Program dropped the commission that small developers have to pay to 15 percent after the developers were unhappy with Apple's 30 percent cut of App Store sales.

In addition to paying a $100 settlement fee, Apple agreed to allow developers to use communications like email to share information about payment methods available outside of the App Store.

Apple promised to maintain the App Store Small Business Program and App Store search, making no changes for at least three years, with the company also creating an annual transparency report based on App Store data covering app rejections, apps removed from the App Store, search information, and more.

The website says that it will distribute funds to developers as soon as possible.

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