If there is any kind of undisclosed arrangement between Apple and Roblox then there's a clear case for securities fraud IMO. There's a huge risk to Roblox were any such deal to unravel, both from the threat of competition being allowed and from the possibility of Apple starting to enforce their published policies on Roblox. For public companies, risks like that must be disclosed.
> undisclosed arrangement between Apple and Roblox then there's a clear case for securities fraud IMO
not all undisclosed arrangements constitute securities fraud - only those whose intent is to defraud investors do.
As for anti-competitive measures, the investigation ought to be from the consumer protection agencies, like the FCC, or from the justice department regarding anti-trust.
You are right that not all undisclosed arrangements are securities fraud. However, an undisclosed arrangement that represents an existential risk to the company were it to ever change would be securities fraud. You can't go public with huge undisclosed risks like that.
Obviously, like all public companies. But have they disclosed the specific risk that Apple might stop giving them special treatment and stop protecting them from competition or start enforcing the policies they violate? I believe I read their S-1 some time ago and didn't find any mention of special treatment from Apple. It's possible they started disclosing it later, but even that would still expose them to shareholder lawsuits from IPO investors.
Edit: They are also vulnerable to insider whistleblowers. Any whistleblower would be eligible for rewards of 10-30% of any penalty ultimately assessed by the SEC. The SEC has paid tens of millions to single whistleblowers in the past.
"We depend on effectively operating with third-party mobile operating systems, hardware, and networks that may make changes affecting our operating costs, as well as our ability to maintain our Platform which would hurt our ability to operate our business.
For the three months ended June 30, 2024, 30% of our revenue was attributable to Robux sales through the Apple App Store and 16% of our revenue was attributable to Robux sales through the Google Play Store. Because of the significant use of our Platform on mobile devices, our application must remain interoperable with these and other popular mobile app stores and platforms, and related hardware. We are subject to the standard policies and terms of service of these operating systems, as well as policies and terms of service of the various software application stores that make our application and experiences available to our developers, creators, and users. These policies and terms of service govern the availability, promotion, distribution, content, and operation of applications and experiences on such operating systems and stores. Each provider of these operating systems and stores has broad discretion to change and interpret its terms of service and policies with respect to our Platform and those changes may be unfavorable to us and our developers’, creators’, and users’ use of our Platform. If an operating system provider or application store limits or discontinues access to, or changes the terms governing, its operating system or store for any reason, it could adversely affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations."
Apple can and does change even the written terms of AppStore service on a whim without warning. The risk that Apple suddenly changes its unwritten enforcement policy to your detriment is not that much different than the risk that they just change their Ts and Cs entirely. Apple’s walled garden, Apple’s rules.
ANY publicly traded company that relies on the Apple AppStore for a significant portion of its revenue has an implied ‘so long as Apple continue to allow us to do this’ caveat hanging over their revenue forecasts.
