Ius Omnibus celebrates a historic victory for consumers and digital users across Europe following the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Case C-34/24. The ruling profoundly strengthens the European framework for collective redress and confirms the growing importance of qualified representative organisations in safeguarding consumer rights in an increasingly digital and interconnected economy.
The case concerned a collective action brought in the Netherlands by two Dutch foundations — Right to Consumer Justice and App Stores Claims, against Apple, alleging abusive and anticompetitive practices in the operation of its App Store. The Amsterdam District Court referred several questions to the CJEU regarding jurisdiction under the Brussels I bis Regulation, including whether representative actions are compatible with the EU’s jurisdictional framework and how harmful events should be localised in digital-platform misconduct cases.
In its judgment, the CJEU confirmed that:
Representative organisations may bring mass-harm actions before national courts even where injured consumers are located across the EU.
The place of the harmful event in digital-platform markets can be established where affected users or developers suffered economic harm — thereby allowing national courts, including Dutch courts, to hear competition-law-based representative actions.
Claims based on the abuse of dominant positions in digital markets fall squarely within the protective scope of EU jurisdiction rules, ensuring that large multinational platforms cannot escape judicial scrutiny through jurisdictional complexity.
This judgment consolidates earlier EU developments — including the Representative Actions Directive (EU) 2020/1828 — and positions collective redress as a cornerstone of effective consumer protection across the Union. It also reinforces the WAMCA framework in the Netherlands, confirming that Dutch courts constitute a robust forum for addressing large-scale, cross-border digital misconduct.
Ius Omnibus emphasises that this decision will facilitate a more coherent and predictable landscape for cross-border litigation, reducing procedural uncertainty and providing consumers meaningful avenues to seek redress for widespread harm, especially in markets dominated by large digital ecosystems.
This judgment is a breakthrough that empowers the association’s ongoing and future actions across Europe, reinforcing its mission to ensure that no consumer is left behind nor stands alone against powerful corporations.
In addition, Ius Omnibus recalls that it has filed its own collective action concerning the same infringement on behalf of Portuguese consumers, which is currently pending before the Portuguese Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court (TCRS) and has been suspended — a suspension expected to last several years.
Ius Omnibus also notes that the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal has already ruled in favour of the consumer representative in the parallel UK action concerning the same conduct, further confirming the seriousness and cross-border relevance of Apple’s alleged practices.