Eight weeks before a three-month trial was due to open in London, Professor Barry Rodger and Google lodged a proposed settlement of the collective claim brought on behalf of UK app developers. The Competition Appeal Tribunal has listed a hearing on 15 September 2026 to decide whether the bargain is just and reasonable. The tribunal's own file shows how close the case came to trial, and how hard the last six months were fought.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal published a Directions Order (Settlement Hearing) in case 1673/7/7/24 on 26 August 2026, and updated the case record to list a settlement hearing on 15 September 2026 with a time estimate of one day and one day in reserve. According to the tribunal's case page, "Permission has been granted for represented persons to make written submissions" on the proposed settlement by 4pm on 10 September 2026.

Professor Barry Rodger, a competition law academic at the University of Strathclyde, confirmed the proposed settlement on 27 August 2026. According to the notice issued to class members and to statements made by Rodger and his solicitors, Geradin Partners, Google would pay £260 million in total, split into a £160 million pot for eligible developers and a separate £100 million pot covering the fees, costs and contractual entitlements owed to the third-party funder, the after-the-event insurers and the legal team. Google makes no admission of liability. The settlement agreement, which runs to 19 pages, records that the company believes it has strong defences to the claim.

The tribunal has not published the settlement agreement. What it has published, across two years of orders, rulings and transcripts, is a detailed record of a claim that was ten days from opening submissions.

A trial that was three months long and three weeks away

The trial in the Rodger proceedings was listed to commence on 28 September 2026, running jointly with the consumer claim brought by Elizabeth Helen Coll in case 1408/7/7/21. The Order made following the pre-trial review on 31 July 2026, and drawn on 5 August 2026, set out the machinery of a very large piece of litigation: a trial bundle hosted on an electronic platform by an agreed trial services provider, an agreed core bundle and authorities bundle due by 5pm on 28 September 2026, and four hard copies filed with the tribunal.

Page limits alone indicate the scale. The two class representatives were each capped at 100 pages for their trial skeleton arguments, including annexes. Google was allowed 150 pages. Economic expert evidence was to be given concurrently, with experts released from their oath at the end of the concurrent session and re-sworn only for individual cross-examination, so that no expert would sit under oath while another was questioned.

In its judgment of 4 June 2026, the tribunal recorded that the trial had been set down for a period of three months, and that it had already been delayed by a year to allow the Rodger and Coll claims to be heard together. The first week of the trial window was designated as a reading week.

What the class looks like

The claim form was filed on 23 August 2024. Rodger sought to combine claims under section 47B of the Competition Act 1998, alleging that Google is dominant on the Android app distribution market and on the licensable smart mobile operating system market, and that it abused that position in two ways: by exclusionary conduct preventing others from competing in the provision of distribution services to Android app developers, and by charging commission of up to 30 percent that was, in the class representative's words as recorded by the tribunal, "excessive and unfair in their own right" as well as unfair as a system of pricing.

The certification hearing took place on 6 March 2025. Google did not oppose the application and did not appear, though it filed written observations on Rodger's litigation funding arrangements and on the composition of his consultative panel. The collective proceedings order was made on 23 May 2025, with written reasons handed down on 6 August 2025 under neutral citation [2025] CAT 45.

Those reasons contain the numbers that frame the settlement. The class was provisionally estimated at approximately 2,200 UK-domiciled third-party app developers. Between 1,520 and 1,672 of them, or 70 to 77 percent of the class, were estimated to have suffered losses of less than £10,000. The aggregate claim was valued at between £374 million and £859 million before interest, or between £425 million and £1.036 billion including compound interest.

Measured against the upper end of that range, the £160 million developer pot represents roughly 15 percent of the claimed value. Measured against the lower pre-interest figure, it represents roughly 43 percent.

The funding structure was itself scrutinised at certification. Bench Walk Guernsey PCC Limited, contracting through a dedicated funding cell, agreed to pay adverse costs without limit to the extent not covered by insurance, and purchased an after-the-event policy with a limit of £15 million. The funder's profit share was set at one times capital outlay for the first 18 months, two times thereafter, and four times from the first day of a liability trial. Google argued that the step-up created a perverse incentive to avoid settlement. The tribunal disagreed, noting that the beginning of trial is a moment of heightened risk and that Google itself had a countervailing incentive to settle earlier, while the funder's return was lower.

The disbursements line in the litigation budget was £3,336,000 inclusive of VAT, of which £316,615.38 was allocated to the consultative panel. That panel comprises Sue Prevezer KC, Professor Richard Whish KC (Hon) and Mark McLaren, the latter being the class representative in a separate collective action over car shipping.

Google's attempt to split the class

The last six months of the case were dominated by two Google applications, both of which the tribunal file records in unusual detail.

On 18 December 2025 the Supreme Court handed down Evans v Barclays Bank [2025] UKSC 48, revisiting how tribunals should approach the choice between opt-in and opt-out collective proceedings. On 13 February 2026 Google wrote to Rodger's solicitors indicating that it would seek to vary the collective proceedings order so that the 25 developers with the highest Google revenues in the relevant period would proceed on an opt-in basis, with the remainder of the class staying opt-out. The application was filed on 27 February 2026. In reply on 8 May 2026, Google offered an alternative: the five largest developers by claim value.

The tribunal refused the application on 4 June 2026, in a judgment drawn on 10 June and reported as [2026] CAT 49. Mrs Justice Bacon, sitting with Tim Frazer and Andrew Taylor, found that the concentration of claim value in a handful of developers was not new. Professor Amelia Fletcher's first expert report, served in support of certification in August 2024, had already stated that a small number of developers earn a large share of total developer revenue, and that either 2 or 3 percent of the class suffered damages above £1 million. The later analysis Google relied on was built on Google's own transaction data, which the company had always held.

Two findings in that judgment bear directly on the value of the settlement. First, on Google's own figures, the vast majority of class members had claims worth no more than a few hundred pounds, and Google accepted that opt-in proceedings would be unviable for them. Second, the evidence of Anthony Ojukwu, a partner at Geradin Partners, was that at least seven of the 25 developers Google described as large and sophisticated entities appeared to be small or medium-sized companies.

The tribunal also weighed the funding consequences. Adrian Chopin, on behalf of the funder, indicated that a switch to a hybrid structure would probably constitute a material adverse change entitling the funder to terminate. Excising the largest claimants at that stage, the tribunal held, would fundamentally alter the viability of funding, "leading to a real risk of the collapse of the Rodger Proceedings". The application was dismissed unanimously.

The judgment did leave Google a route. It noted that Rule 89(1)(c) of the Competition Appeal Tribunal Rules 2015 allows disclosure to be ordered from a represented person, and that such an application was available whether the proceedings were opt-in or opt-out. It added that any such application would need to be made very promptly.

Seventeen disclosure applications and one opt-out

Google moved within days, and the manner in which it did so became the subject of a separate ruling.

On 10 June 2026 Google contacted a number of developers in writing for the first time. Thirteen of them were contacted outside working hours. The letters sought a substantive response by 5pm the following day, indicating that formal applications would follow on 12 June absent voluntary disclosure. On 12 June 2026 Google filed 17 disclosure applications against 17 of the 25 largest class members. The tribunal wrote to the parties on 19 June 2026 setting out its expectations for future communications with class members.

The material sought went to whether particular developers fell within the class definition at all, and whether intra-group arrangements meant that revenues attributed to a UK entity had in fact been allocated to a non-UK parent. Google's initial requests covered all intra-group sales, publishing, intellectual property, licensing and development arrangements, all intercompany agreements relating to intragroup revenue share costs, and copies of transfer pricing master files and UK local files. By 7 July 2026 the requests had been narrowed to executed revenue-sharing agreements for the 2022 to 2024 financial years and the UK local file for 2023 and 2024.

Hodge Malek KC, sitting alone, granted the narrowed application in a ruling dated 9 July 2026 and published on 17 July 2026 as [2026] CAT 58. The respondent developer, whose identity is redacted throughout, had estimated that compliance would take approximately two months and cost around £30,000. The tribunal ordered the agreements within two weeks and the remaining material within five, with Google to pay the developer's reasonable costs.

Two passages in that ruling matter for the wider collective proceedings regime. The tribunal set out that applications for disclosure from class members "should not be regarded as routine", and that they must be handled in a way that does not encourage class members to opt out to avoid the burden. It then recorded that Google's approach had consequences: DAZN Group Limited opted out of the claim, and further opt-out requests followed the disclosure applications. The tribunal did not accept that the applications were a deliberate attempt to derail the proceedings, and said expressly that had it so found, it would have refused them on that ground.

Rodger's position, as recorded in the ruling, was that Google had delayed for at least a year, having proposed a 7 July 2025 deadline for class member disclosure requests in its own skeleton argument for a case management conference on 1 May 2025, then waited until June 2026.

The chair also noted an unusual procedural difficulty. He was not a member of the trial tribunal, and observed that refusing disclosure could permanently shut the door on a defence Google had been given permission to plead. He expressly did not prejudge whether the material would be admitted at trial.

The pre-trial review reset the class period

The order made after the 31 July 2026 pre-trial review did two things that bear on the settlement.

It extended the Relevant Period in the Rodger proceedings to end on 31 July 2026, rather than on the date the claim form was filed. It also created a second domicile date. Developers that made a qualifying sale for the first time between 23 August 2024 and 31 July 2026 take a domicile date of 31 July 2026, and may opt out by giving written notice to Angeion, the claims administrator, by 4pm on 14 September 2026. The earlier cohort's opt-out deadline was 4pm on 23 August 2025.

That deadline falls one day before the settlement hearing.

There is a small inconsistency in the tribunal's own documents on the start of the class period. The certification judgment defines the relevant period as beginning six years before the claim form was filed on 23 August 2024. The July 2026 disclosure ruling records it as running from 22 August 2018. Press accounts of the settlement have variously described the class period as ending in July 2026 and in August 2026; the tribunal's order specifies 31 July 2026.

The same order also confined a contested quantum question to what the tribunal called the Issue of Principle: "the relevance of the intra-group arrangements of UK-domiciled app developers" to the assessment of aggregate damages. The tribunal directed that it would make no findings of fact at trial about any individual represented person's arrangements, and that if the point were decided in Google's favour, residual issues would be dealt with at a short further hearing after judgment.

The Coll claim continues

The settlement covers developers, not consumers. The Coll proceedings, brought on behalf of Android device users over the same commission, remain live. The pre-trial review order amended the Coll class period to run from 1 October 2015 to 31 July 2026, approved a notice of amended class definition for publication on the claim website, and set an opt-out and opt-in deadline of 11 September 2026 for the newest cohort of class members.

The third case in the group has already gone. Epic Games withdrew its claim against Google by consent on 9 March 2026, following the separate settlement it reached in the United States, which PPC Land covered when Google and Epic proposed a modified antitrust injunction in November 2025. That earlier United States litigation had produced an order requiring Google to open the Android app store, reported by PPC Land in October 2024.

Why it matters for marketers and app businesses

For anyone whose distribution or monetisation runs through Google Play, the settlement is a compensation event rather than a structural one. Nothing in the proposed agreement changes commission rates, billing rules or distribution terms. Those are moving separately, and faster.

Google split its Play service fee from its billing fee on 24 June 2026, producing a restructured rate card that PPC Land reported at 25 percent for the combined charge in the United States, the United Kingdom and other markets. The company had earlier rolled out user choice billing to UK app developers on 29 March 2025, offering a 4 percentage point discount off the standard service fee for transactions processed outside Google Play, following engagement with the Competition and Markets Authority.

Regulatory pressure on the same conduct has continued in parallel. The European Commission fined Google 890 million euros on 23 July 2026, of which 430 million euros concerned restrictions on Play developers steering users to alternative purchase channels under the Digital Markets Act, with a compliance deadline of 21 September 2026. Google publicly rejected the findings the same week. In Luxembourg, the Court of Justice dismissed Google's appeal against the 4.125 billion euro Android fine on 2 July 2026. In London, the Competition and Markets Authority had already designated Google with Strategic Market Status on 30 September 2025, and in February 2026 accepted voluntary commitments from Apple and Google on app review transparency rather than imposing binding conduct rules.

The comparison the settlement invites is with Apple. The Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled on 23 October 2025 that Apple had abused its dominant position in app markets, finding that it had charged developers excessive and unfair commissions. That claim went to judgment. The Rodger claim will not, and the tribunal will make no finding on whether Google's commission was excessive, unfair or lawful.

The wider signal for advertisers is procedural rather than substantive. The UK collective regime now reaches the buy side of Google's business as well as the supply side. On 5 August 2026 the tribunal certified an opt-out claim valued at around £5 billion on behalf of UK advertisers that bought Google search ads between 2011 and 2025. That case is at the start of the road the Rodger claim has just left. The disclosure ruling of July 2026, and the tribunal's warning about applications that push class members toward opting out, will be read closely by everyone inside that class.

What the 15 September hearing decides is narrow and consequential. The tribunal must be satisfied that the terms are just and reasonable. It controls the distribution, and under the funding agreement the funder's total fee cannot exceed the portion of the proceeds the tribunal approves for it. The £100 million stakeholder pot is a proposal, not an entitlement.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Professor Barry Rodger, a competition law academic and the certified class representative for UK-domiciled third-party app developers, and seven Google and Alphabet entities including Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited and Google UK Limited. The Competition Appeal Tribunal panel is chaired by Mrs Justice Bacon, sitting with Tim Frazer and Andrew Taylor. Rodger is represented by Geradin Partners and funded by Bench Walk; Google is represented by Reynolds Porter Chamberlain.

What: A proposed settlement of collective proceedings in case 1673/7/7/24, under which Google would pay £260 million without admitting liability, according to the notice issued to class members. Of that, £160 million would form a pot for eligible developers and £100 million would meet funder, insurer and legal costs. The tribunal must decide whether the terms are just and reasonable, and controls how much of the proceeds reaches the funder.

When: The claim was filed on 23 August 2024 and certified on 23 May 2025. The settlement was confirmed on 27 August 2026, the day after the tribunal published its Directions Order (Settlement Hearing). Represented persons may file written submissions by 4pm on 10 September 2026. The approval hearing is listed for 15 September 2026. The trial had been listed to commence on 28 September 2026 and to run for three months.

Where: The Competition Appeal Tribunal, Salisbury Square House, 8 Salisbury Square, London. The class covers UK-domiciled third-party app developers that made a qualifying sale through Google Play during a period the tribunal has now extended to end on 31 July 2026.

Why: The claim alleged that Google excluded rival Android app distribution channels and charged commission of up to 30 percent that was excessive and unfair. The tribunal valued the aggregate claim at between £425 million and £1.036 billion with compound interest at certification. A settlement ends the case without any finding on the merits, leaving Google's commission structure and distribution rules untouched, and leaves the parallel consumer claim brought by Elizabeth Helen Coll to continue toward trial.