UK Tribunal Allows Proceedings of New Lawsuit Against Valve

A UK Competition Appeal Tribunal has ruled that Valve Corporation must face a £656 million (~$900 million USD) collective lawsuit alleging anti-competitive conduct on its Steam digital marketplace. The case was first filed in June 2024, by Parent Zone CEO and digital rights campaigner, Vicki Shotbolt, on behalf of 14M UK citizens, who might receive compensation if she wins the lawsuit.

With the latest escalation on Jan 26, 2026, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has rejected Valve’s attempt to block the trial at an early stage, allowing the case to proceed towards full hearings. The lawsuit accuses Valve of abusing a dominant market position by imposing allegedly excessive commissions and restrictive contractual terms on game publishers.

According to the claim, Valve restricts competition by forcing publishers from offering lower prices on rival platforms and by structuring Steam in ways that tie additional content purchases to its ecosystem. These practices have allegedly enabled the platform to generate an “excessive commission of up to 30%.”

Shotbolt has argued, "Valve is rigging the market and taking advantage of UK gamers." The case is positioned as a collective action claim, which allows a single representative to pursue competition claims on behalf of a large group.

Valve's Steam Accused of Market Abuse

The tribunal does not indicate whether Valve violated competition law, but affirms that the assertions satisfy the legal requirements to be examined by proof, professional evaluation, and legal reasoning.

The proposed hearing aims to combine Valve’s alleged infringements of “Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (up to 31 December 2020) and section 18 of the Act.” Based on alleged arguments, “Valve has abused this dominant position” with three different charges.

Valve’s Steam has imposed Platform Parity Obligations (PPOs) on publishers, which are “likely to cause, and have in fact caused, restrictions of competition.” Steam also locked in users within its ecosystem for add-on content if they purchased the game on the platform.

Allegations suggest that Steam has benefited from “a larger share of the Add-on Content Markets” by inhibiting or limiting the capacity of other distribution channels to provide (including self-supply) add-on content for games available on Steam. Lastly, the company’s “excessive commission charges” have resulted in “an unfair price,” ultimately harming the consumers.

This is not the only class action lawsuit against Valve/Steam. The company is also facing another US consumer action lawsuit filed by players, accusing Steam of prohibiting publishers on the online store from reducing or discounting the price of the games elsewhere.

The company was also accused of antitrust behavior, resulting in an April 2021 antitrust lawsuit from Wolfire Studios, highlighting anti-competitive practices and a 30% revenue cut. This case was initially dismissed, but was later combined with Dark Catt’s antitrust lawsuit against Valve, again alleging that the company uses “market power to impose anticompetitive pricing and marketing restrictions,” in 2022. The combined case was positioned as a class action lawsuit in 2024.

Valve has yet to issue a comment, as of this reporting.