If you are a Represented Person, you may be eligible to submit a claim for a share of Professor Rodger’s £260 million settlement with Google.

To be entitled to compensation under the settlement, a developer will ordinarily need to satisfy all five of the following:

1. Did the developer make at least one qualifying Play Store sale between 22 August 2018 and 31 July 2026?

A qualifying sale is broadly:

• a paid download of an Android app through the Play Store;
• a one-off purchase of digital content by an Android user within an Android app; or
• a recurring purchase or subscription for digital content by an Android user within or for an Android app, where Google charged commission on that sale.

It is not enough simply to have distributed a free Android app.

Digital content includes, for example, in-app items or virtual currency, additional app features or content, and digital subscriptions. The Google Play Store commission applies to sales of apps and digital content, rather than physical goods or services (such as groceries or a physical book). Therefore, developers who only sell physical goods or services will not be entitled to a settlement payment.

2. Did the developer exist and was it UK-domiciled on the relevant date?

The relevant date depends on when the developer first made one of the qualifying Play Store sales described at 1 above:

• if it first made such a sale before 23 August 2024, it must have existed and been UK-domiciled on 23 May 2025;
• if it first made such a sale between 23 August 2024 and 31 July 2026, it must have existed and been UK-domiciled on 31 July 2026.

For a company or other legal entity:

• It must not have been dissolved, struck off or otherwise ceased to exist by that date. If it subsequently merged, was dissolved or underwent another corporate reorganisation, we may need evidence showing which entity is now entitled to receive a settlement payment.
• It must have been domiciled in the UK on that date, which typically means:
  • it was incorporated in the UK and had its registered office or other official address in the UK; or
  • its central management and control was exercised in the UK.

In most cases, we expect to be able to assess domicile using public information (such as Companies House records).

3. Did the developer pay Google’s commission?

The claim is brought on behalf of UK developers that paid Google’s commission. We have data from Google on developers who received revenues from qualifying Play Store sales (i.e. who paid the commission, which was deducted from those revenues).

In most cases, we expect eligibility to be straightforward because Google’s records identify the developer accounts that received revenues from qualifying Play Store sales and paid Google’s commission. We will use the Google Developer ID to match developers to those records and calculate provisional entitlements.

Where a developer cannot be matched to those records or considers that the data is inaccurate, we may ask for additional evidence.

4. Did the developer remain in the proceedings?

If the developer chose to opt out of the collective proceedings or the settlement, it cannot receive a settlement payment.

5. Did the developer pay an effective Google Play commission rate that exceeded the benchmark rate in the settlement distribution methodology?

The distribution methodology compares the commission rate developers actually paid on eligible Google Play transactions with a benchmark or ‘counterfactual’ commission rate. To be eligible for a settlement payment, the actual effective commission rate paid by the developer must exceed the benchmark rate for the relevant period. Where the actual rate was equal to or below the counterfactual rate, no overcharge is identified for those transactions.

If the developer did not pay more than the benchmark rate on any qualifying transaction, it will not be entitled to compensation.

For example, suppose the benchmark commission rate used in the settlement methodology is 12%. (This is an illustrative example – the actual counterfactual rate used to calculate entitlements is confidential).

• If the developer paid an effective commission rate of 30%, the difference is 18 percentage points, so that transaction may contribute to the developer’s settlement calculation.
• If the developer paid an effective commission rate of 15%, the difference is 3 percentage points, so that transaction may contribute to the developer’s settlement calculation but by a smaller amount.
• If the developer paid an effective commission rate of 10%, the difference would be negative. In that situation, the loss for that transaction is treated as zero and it would not reduce any losses calculated for other transactions where the developer paid more than 12%.