Tech & Legal Updates
Short, executive level legal and commercial updates for founders and leaders of scaling technology businesses.
App store and mobile platform risk is becoming a UK conduct regime issue
The CMA has opened investigations to assess whether Apple and Google should be designated with strategic market status for mobile platforms under the UK digital markets regime. Founders shipping via app stores should review platform dependencies and non-negotiables in distribution, payments, ranking, and data access. EU competition law continues to frame the risk: the Court of Justice upheld the Commission’s Google Shopping abuse finding, reinforcing scrutiny of self-preferencing.
Platform dependency is a commercial term you never negotiated
Distribution through an app store means accepting terms set unilaterally and varied unilaterally, covering payment mechanics, ranking, data access and the economics of the relationship. That is a commercial dependency of a kind most businesses would never accept from a negotiated supplier, and it is usually not visible on any risk register because it never arrived as a contract anyone signed.
A conduct regime does not remove that dependency. What it may do is change what a platform can do with it, which makes this the right moment to understand how much of the business rests on terms it does not control.
What to check
- What proportion of revenue depends on a single distribution channel, and what a change to its payment terms would cost.
- Whether the business could reach existing customers if store distribution were interrupted.
- Whether platform terms already permit changes to ranking, payment or data access without meaningful notice.
- Whether customer contracts make commitments that assume continued platform access.
Where this lands in the contract
The exposure is generally not with the platform, where there is little negotiating room. It sits in the commitments made to customers on the assumption that platform access continues on current terms. Service levels, pricing and delivery obligations written without regard to that dependency place the risk of a unilateral platform change on the business rather than where it originated.
Where a material dependency exists, it should be reflected in customer terms rather than absorbed silently.