Sony Interactive Entertainment Sued Over PlayStation Store Prices

A Class-action lawsuit against Sony Interactive Entertainment in the UK is being allowed to proceed, according to a London Tribunal.

The company was originally sued last year, but a report by Reuters says that the lawsuit, asking for 5 billion pounds in damages, was allowed to proceed via a ruling from the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London yesterday.

Sony Interactive Entertainment had previously tried to have the lawsuit struck out, though the Tribunal has disagreed with their opinion that the case has no merit.

“The Tribunal determined that in order properly to resolve the dispute between the PCR (consumers) and Sony about the existence of an exclusive dealing or tying abuse which is principally independent of any refusal to supply, it is not necessarily appropriate simply to apply the Bronner Conditions and further detailed factual inquiries, potentially involving expert evidence on technical matters, are required to resolve that question”, the judgement reads (parenthesis our own).

While they didn’t strike out the case entirely, it should be noted that the judgment wasn’t necessarily in favor of the consumers either: it simply says that the case has merit and warrants a proper discovery and trial.

“The Tribunal concluded that the PCR’s case is properly pleaded and not liable to be struck out and the Tribunal is not in a position to answer the question at this stage, where such facts have only been partially explored and a trial of the matter is the appropriate mechanism to determine the dispute”, the judgment continues.

Debates about the nature of platform exclusivity have been up in frequency in recent years, most notably with the Epic V Apple case- in short, many companies have been challenging the inherent monopoly caused by platform-specific stores like the Apple AppStore or, in this case, PlayStation Network.

In the Epic Games incident, US courts found the “monopoly” argument largely untrue- though in Apple’s case it did allow app developers to use different platforms for making purchases.

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