A new claim filed at the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal on September 3, 2026 alleges that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework held outside app developers to stricter rules than Apple applied to its own services, at a cost the claim puts as high as £2 billion. The tribunal has not certified the claim and nothing in it has been proven; Apple disputes the allegation.
The claim was filed by a company called ATT Collective Action Limited, on an opt-out basis, meaning it automatically covers the class of UK developers it describes unless they choose to leave it.
Key facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Claimant | ATT Collective Action Limited |
| Amount claimed | Up to £2 billion |
| Court | UK Competition Appeal Tribunal |
| Filed | September 3, 2026 |
| Claim type | Opt-out, on behalf of UK app developers |
| Period covered | Since April 26, 2021, when ATT launched |
| Status | Awaiting certification by the tribunal |
What the claim alleges
According to the claimant’s law firm, Hausfeld, the claim covers UK app developers who earned advertising revenue inside third-party iOS apps, or who spent money advertising to attract users to third-party iOS apps, since ATT launched in April 2021. The allegation is that ATT imposed tracking-permission requirements on outside developers that Apple did not apply to itself, and that Apple introduced the policy “unfairly and unilaterally, without consultation.”
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The claim’s director is named as Ann Pope, described in the law firm’s release as a former Senior Director for Antitrust at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. She is quoted in that release: “Privacy is an important protection for consumers, but it should be applied fairly and in a way that ensures businesses of all sizes can compete on a level playing field.” Luke Streatfeild, named in the same release as a partner at Hausfeld, is quoted saying: “The ATT Policy got this balance wrong. It was introduced unfairly and unilaterally, without consultation, in a manner that damaged British app developers.”
Apple’s response
Apple has not published its own statement addressing this specific claim on its newsroom. A response attributed to Apple and reported this week says App Tracking Transparency was built “to give users a simple way to control whether apps have permission to track their activity across other companies’ apps and websites,” and that “Apple is bound by the exact same requirements as all developers under ATT, and this feature has been embraced by our customers and praised by privacy advocates.” That wording should be read as a reported statement rather than Apple’s own on-the-record page, since no matching newsroom post was found.
Apple’s other pending UK claims
The ATT claim is the third active case in front of the same tribunal this year. This is arithmetic performed for this article, not a total published by the tribunal or by Apple:
| Case | Amount | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| Kent v Apple (App Store commission) | £1.5 billion (judgment, October 2025) | Apple’s appeal awaiting a rolled-up hearing listed between November 2, 2026 and March 24, 2027 |
| Which? v Apple (iCloud storage) | About £3 billion | Certified June 2026; trial reportedly October 2028 |
| ATT Collective Action Ltd v Apple | Up to £2 billion | Filed September 3, 2026; awaiting certification |
Added together, those three figures come to more than £6.5 billion in claims and judgments in front of one tribunal. The Kent case is a judgment currently under appeal; the Which? and ATT cases remain unproven claims, not findings against Apple.
What happens next
Before the ATT claim can proceed, the Competition Appeal Tribunal must certify it as suitable for a collective action. No certification hearing date had been published as of this writing. The tribunal’s own case register, rather than either side’s public statements, is the place to check for that date once one is set.
The claim lands in the same week Apple opened iPhone 18 Pro pre-orders and finished preparing iOS 27 for its Monday release, though none of Apple’s product plans are connected to this litigation.
What Apple has not said
Apple’s newsroom carries no post addressing the ATT claim as of September 13, 2026, and Apple has not said whether it will contest certification. Readers who want the claim’s current status can check the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s own case pages directly rather than relying on either side’s characterization.
The next concrete step is certification, which the tribunal has not scheduled. Coverage of Apple’s September 9 event and the iOS 27 release remains unrelated to this case and will not be updated by any tribunal ruling.
