As private antitrust litigation against tech companies becomes increasingly common, courts are increasingly called upon to determine international and territorial jurisdiction for antitrust infringements that are committed in the EU without any physical location. The EU jurisdictional rule in Article 7(2) of the Brussels I-bis Regulation (Brussels I-bis) for tort cases uses the place where the damages or the event giving rise to said damages occurred to establish jurisdiction. This rule, however, assumes that the harmful event in the EU would occur in a specific physical place, making it interesting to apply to infringements taking place in the digital sphere. This is especially the case in collective actions, where millions of users are spread across a Member State.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) addressed this in its 2 December 2025 ruling in Stichting Right to Consumer Justice and Stichting App Stores Claims (App Store Claims). This case concerns a Dutch collective action for damages brought on behalf of Dutch iOS-users claiming that Apple had abused its dominance by charging excessively high commissions on the Dutch version of the Apple App Store. The CJEU ruled that in such cases all courts of that Member State with substantive jurisdiction have jurisdiction under Article 7(2) Brussels I-bis. This blogpost will analyse the CJEU’s ruling and its implications.
Background
The claim
The case concerns a claim for damages brought by two remaining foundations under the Dutch collective actions regime, the Wet Afwikkeling Massaschade in Collectieve Acties (WAMCA), on behalf of Dutch iOS-users.[1] The foundations brought their actions before the Amsterdam District Court (the District Court) between October 2021 and April 2022.
The foundations alleged that Apple had abused its dominant position on the market for the distribution of iOS apps by charging excessively high commissions, resulting in higher app prices.[2] The claims specifically concern commissions charged by Apple on purchases made via the country-specific version of the Apple App Store for the Netherlands.
Legal Framework
Brussels I-bis determines which Member State has jurisdiction (‘international jurisdiction’), as well as which court within that Member State is competent to hear a claim (‘territorial jurisdiction’) in civil matters with a cross-border element in the EU. In principle, Article 4(1) Brussels I-bis provides that defendants must be sued before the courts in whose jurisdiction their domicile is located. Article 7 provides several exceptions to that rule. Under Article 7(2) Brussels I-bis, the courts of the place in which an event causing harm occurred or where the damages were suffered have jurisdiction to hear claims. If the event causing harm and the place where the damage occurred differ, then plaintiffs can choose between the two.
Article 7(2) has been applied to private antitrust claims several times. In flyLAL, the CJEU ruled that the place where the damage occurred coincides with the Member State whose market was affected by the anticompetitive conduct.[3] In RH, the CJEU found that the place where the damage occurred is the place where a product was purchased, if the damage in question is the result of higher prices caused by anticompetitive conduct.[4] Where the victim purchased goods from multiple places, the courts within whose jurisdiction the victim has their domicile or registered office can hear the claim.[5]
The jurisdictional issue
The foundations sued several Dutch subsidiaries of Apple, as well as Apple, Inc. and Apple Distribution International Ltd, Apple’s American and Irish corporate entities. The latter acts as Apple’s distributor within the EU, including in the Netherlands. Apple contested the District Court’s jurisdiction with regard to its American and Irish legal entities. The court addressed these jurisdictional issues in an interim ruling on 13 August 2023. Based on flyLAL, the District Court preliminarily determined it had international jurisdiction, as the Dutch App Store was aimed exclusively at consumers in the Netherlands. Territorial jurisdiction was more difficult to determine given the mobile nature of iOS-users. As determined in RH, the domicile of the victims can also establish jurisdiction.[6] The WAMCA, however, makes this approach challenging, because it utilizes the opt-out principle. When courts determine jurisdiction, the identities of the victims are not known, nor is the place of purchase or their domicile. Given these difficulties, the District Court decided to ask the CJEU four questions on the scope of Article 7(2) Brussels I-bis.
The CJEU’s judgment
The CJEU begins its judgment by examining how the concept of the place where the damage occurred should be interpreted and confirming the District Court’s conclusion that Dutch courts had international jurisdiction in this case.[7] The Dutch App Store is designed specifically for the Dutch market and offered apps in Dutch to users whose Apple ID is associated with the Netherlands. This is the ‘virtual space’ where the damage occurred.[8] Since this virtual space corresponds to the territory of the Netherlands, the damages were suffered in the Netherlands and Dutch courts had international jurisdiction. This applied irrespective of the physical location of the user at the time of the purchase.[9]
The CJEU then discussed the hot potato of territorial jurisdiction. Here, it first distinguished between WAMCA cases and claims assigned to a claim vehicle by specific victims. Under the WAMCA, the alleged victims represented by the foundations are not yet identified when the claim is brought, though the description must be precise enough that they are identifiable.[10] According to the CJEU, this means courts ‘cannot be required’ to identify these victims when establishing jurisdiction.[11]
Given that the victims are not identifiable, it is of course not possible to identify the precise location where each victim had suffered damages. This, however, does not exclude the application of Article 7(2) Brussels I-bis, since it is nonetheless clear that the damage occurred in a single Member State. Accordingly, the CJEU ruled that each court in the Member State corresponding to the virtual space with substantive jurisdiction also has jurisdiction to hear the claim. This means that the Amsterdam District Court has jurisdiction.
According to the CJEU, this outcome aligns with Brussels I-bis’s objectives of proximity and predictability. Regarding proximity, all the unidentified Dutch iOS-users suffered the same type of damage throughout the Netherlands. Each court with substantive jurisdiction is thus equally close to the subject matter.[12] Moreover, Apple had targeted the Netherlands specifically with its storefront, making it entirely predictable that all Dutch courts have jurisdiction.[13] The CJEU also considered that this finding ensures the sound administration of justice.[14] Citing prior case law, the CJEU found the economic, factual and technical complexity of private competition law may ‘militate in favour’ of a centralisation of jurisdiction, particularly with respect to digital platforms.[15] Moreover, centralising jurisdiction in one court prevents diverging opinions. Given the above answer, the court found that it was not necessary to discuss the place where the harmful event occurred since Dutch courts already had jurisdiction. The question regarding centralisation was also redundant and was therefore not addressed.
Analysis
Both predictable and surprising
With respect to international jurisdiction, the ruling is not particularly surprising. The District Court had already preliminarily ruled on this issue. Moreover, it is difficult to see where Dutch users of the Dutch App Store would have suffered damages other than the Netherlands.
The CJEU’s finding that any Dutch court with substantive jurisdiction has territorial jurisdiction is arguably more surprising, although it fits with the broader trend in preliminary private enforcement judgments. However, it deviates from Advocate General (AG) Sánchez-Bordona’s opinion, which argued that the place of domicile of each user should be used, meaning separate proceedings need to be brought before each Dutch court. Moreover, it is not immediately apparent from the wording of Article 7(2) that jurisdiction can be effectively centralised in the manner that the CJEU does in its ruling.
Beneficial for mass claims
The immediate effect of the judgment is that it makes filing mass claims less burdensome. If the CJEU had followed the AG’s opinion, it would have created a (small, but annoying) logistical hurdle for WAMCA-claims. The foundations would have to file separate claims in each district (arrondissement) on behalf of the users living in said district with a request to join said cases or use the anchor doctrine developed in Sumal.
This is not an insurmountable obstacle, but would raise litigation costs and risk a fragmentation of outcomes. The latter risk can be mitigated under Dutch law, as civil procedure allows for parties to request referral to the court where a similar case is pending between the same parties.[16] In the Netherlands, bringing WAMCA-claims against digital platforms will therefore become slightly cheaper and less troublesome.
Emphasis on the lack of identity extends scope of ruling
On its face, the subject matter of this judgment seems limited to app stores and other digital platforms distributing digital goods (e.g. Google Play, PlayStation Store). These stores do not sell physical goods, making identifying the location of a place of purchase (and thus application of RH) challenging.
However, the court’s focus on the unidentifiable nature of victims in WAMCA-claims means that the approach taken in App Store Claims could well be applied to platforms selling physical goods. In its judgment, the CJEU found that the opt-out mechanism within the WAMCA means that the place of purchase and domicile of the victims could not be identified:
’65. […] the outcome of a representative action for the defence of the collective interests of unidentified but identifiable persons is binding on the persons established in the Netherlands who belong to that group and who have not expressed their intention to refrain from participating in those proceedings.
66. In such circumstances, a court cannot be required, for the purpose of determining its territorial jurisdiction to hear such an action, on the basis of the place where the damage occurred […] to identify, for each alleged victim taken individually, the precise place where the damage that may have been suffered occurred, since those victims are not identified individually at the time when that court ascertains whether it has jurisdiction; nor can it be required to identify one or some of those victims.’
This emphasis on unidentifiability means that the solution adopted by the CJEU in App Store Claims would apply to all WAMCA-claims based on tort that resulted in (alleged) victims paying higher prices. Amazon for instance has a national storefront, but delivers physical goods, meaning that it would theoretically be possible to determine the place of purchase for each user. However, in a WAMCA-claim brought on behalf of Dutch Amazon users, the users would still be unidentified when jurisdiction is established, meaning App Store Claims would apply.
The effect of this is that claimants can ‘shop’ for a district court of their liking in WAMCA cases. Claimants may eventually grow to prefer a specific district court for these types of WAMCA-claims if certain courts handle cases more efficiently than others. This is ironic considering the Dutch legislator specifically chose not to designate a specific court as having jurisdiction over all WAMCA-claims.[17]
Approach to foreseeability aligns with Power Cables Opinion
The CJEU’s considerations regarding predictability also align with AG Kokott’s opinion in Power Cables. Power Cables concerns a follow-on claim currently pending before the Amsterdam Court of Appeals (the Court of Appeals). The dispute revolves around Article 8 Brussels I-bis, which allows for a court with jurisdiction over one defendant to hear claims against the other defendants provided the claims are ‘closely connected’. The Court of Appeals had asked whether foreseeability is an independent criterion under Brussels I-bis.[18]
In her opinion, AG Kokott concluded that foreseeability is not an independent criterion, but a general principle. The jurisdictional criteria set out in Brussels I-bis should thus not be interpreted in a manner that is incompatible with foreseeability.[19] However, foreseeability merely refers to an ‘abstract foreseeability’, meaning that the fact that a reasonable defendant could foresee being sued before a given court is sufficient.[20]
The CJEU has yet to answer the questions posed in Power Cables. Indeed, this judgment is still not on the docket. However, the CJEU specifically refers to ‘the objectives of […] predictability’ in App Store Claims, suggesting that it does not view predictability as a separate criterion.[21]
Unfortunate that a court did not rule on the event giving rise to damage
Finally, it is unfortunate that the CJEU did not answer the questions regarding the place where the event giving rise to the damage occurred in this case, given the AG opinion. The District Court took the view that the sales were the event giving rise to the damage. The AG, however, viewed the imposition of the terms and conditions of the App Store establishing Apple’s commission as more appropriate.[22] While the question is not necessarily relevant for the case at hand, it would be helpful for courts establishing jurisdiction in future cases regarding the unilateral imposition of contractual terms.
[1] A third foundation, Stichting Consumenten Competition Claims, also filed a claim against Apple. However, the District Court found that it did not summon Apple in a timely manner and therefore declared its claim inadmissible.
[2] Stichting Right to Consumer Justice also argued that Apple is engaging in resale price maintenance.
[3] Case C-27/17, flyLAL ECLI:EU:C:2018:533, para. 40.
[4] Case C-30/20, RH v. Volvo ECLI:EU:C:2021:604, para. 39-40.
[5] Case C-30/20, RH v. Volvo ECLI:EU:C:2021:604, para. 42.
[6] Especially because almost every single user downloads more than one app from the App Store.
[7] Case C-27/17, flyLAL ECLI:EU:C:2018:533, para. 52
[8] Case C-34/24, Stichting Right to Consumer Justice and Stichting App Store Claims ECLI:EU:C:2025:936, para. 61.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid. para. 62.
[11] Ibid. para. 66.
[12] Ibid. para. 71.
[13] Ibid. para. 72.
[14] Ibid. para. 73
[15] Ibid. para. 74.
[16] See Article 220(1) Dutch Civil Procedural Code.
[17] Amsterdam District Court, Stichting Right to Consumer Justice, Stichting Consumenten Competition Claims and Stichting App Store Claims v. Apple ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2023:5310 para.7.6.
[18] AG Opinion in Case C-672/23, Electricity & Water Authority of the Government of Bahrain and Others ECLI:EU:C:2025:243, Question 1b.
[19] Ibid. para. 81.
[20] Ibid. para. 82
[21] Ibid. para. 70.
[22] AG Opinion in Case C-34/24, Stichting Right to Consumer Justice and Stichting App Store Claims ECLI:EU:C:2025:212, para. 53 and footnote 28.
