LONDON (Reuters) – Sony faces a trial that could cost it up to 6.3 billion pounds (5.77 billion euros) over abuse of a dominant position that allowed it to impose unfair prices on customers of its Playstation, a London court ruled on Tuesday.
Some nine million people, who purchased games and expansions through the Playstation Store (the catalog of games developed by Sony), sued Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) last year in the United Kingdom.
The leader of the revolt, Alex Neill, said Sony had abused its dominant position by requiring that dematerialized games and expansions be sold only through the Playstation Store, which charges a 30% commission to developers and publishers.
The plaintiffs argue that customers thus paid more for games and expansions.
Sony’s lawyers said the case was “biased from start to finish” and requested that the legal proceedings be dropped.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled that the procedure could proceed but added that people who made purchases on the Playstation Store after the complaint was filed in 2022 must be removed from the list of complainants.
Alex Neill said in a statement that the London court’s decision was “a first step in allowing consumers to recover what they are owed.”
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; French version by Zhifan Liu, editing by Tangi Salaün)
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