You may have heard by now about the case that Epic Games had against Apple. Now, there is some new info on it, and it seems that according to Apple, Epic Games’ appeal is not going to win in court, reports AppleInsider. Let’s look at the latest development on this story!
Epic vs Apple: the legal dispute is still going on
Well, it all started with the Fortnite game. Basically, back in August of 2020, Apple removed the Fortnite game from the App Store because it deemed the app was bypassing the App Store’s rules for payments and has added a link to bypass Apple’s commission fee on purchases. This whole ordeal then led to Fortnite filing a lawsuit against Apple. Then in September of last year, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple is not a monopoly, and pretty much ruled in favor of Apple in the majority of the lawsuit counts. Epic Games filed an appeal to the judge’s ruling.
Now, Apple has published a new brief in which Cupertino declares that Epic games lost the case because it failed to prove wrongdoing, not because of any legal errors on the judge’s part.
The Principal and Response Brief was filed by Apple with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and it is relating to the appeals and cross-appeals in the case between Epic games and Apple. Basically, the document lists why the majority of rulings in the case should be affirmed by the Ninth Circuit.
The brief states that Epic did not lose the trial due to any legal error, but it lost “because it ‘overreached’ by asserting claims on the ‘frontier edges of antitrust law.” What Apple is aiming to do with this document is to state that it doesn’t believe Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers made any legal errors in her decision, which pretty much gave Apple the win in the case.
But why did Apple has to send this brief? Well, this is, in ways, a direct answer to Epic Games’ argument in its appeal to the ruling, which alleges Judge Gonzalez Rogers had made an error in her judgment.
What is the Epic Games document all about, you may wonder. Well, the document is around 135 pages long, and it goes into detail about Epic’s arguments and why the game maker lost nine out of the ten counts that were presented in court. Additionally, the document draws a comparison with Apple’s own cross-appeal and claims that it was based on two legal errors surrounding the California Unfair Competition Law.
Epic Games’ Fortnite
In the document, there is also a part that addresses “anti-steering” provisions. This, pretty much, is the way Apple is preventing other developers from informing customers there is another payment system for their users that they can use. As you may know, any app downloaded on iPhone or iPad requires the payment to go through the App Store and any links that lead to separate payment systems are forbidden. But this was the one count that Apple lost, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple should make it possible for developers to inform their customers about alternative payment methods.
On the “anti-steering” provisions matter, Apple said that the evidence that Epic provided is “legally insufficient to support the UCL judgment.” On top of all that, Apple notes in the brief that Epic games can no longer hurt the App Store as it is no longer an Apple developer.
Epic vs Apple saga: how it all unfolded
Okay, in case you don’t know what’s happened exactly, here’s a quick recap with a bit more details for you. First off, as we already mentioned, it all started back in 2020. What happened is that Epic Games’ very popular game at the time, Fortnite, started suddenly to offer a separate payment system next to the normal way gamers could pay for Fortnite.
Here’s what started all of this
The game maker had included a discount for the link that lead to its own payment system. But, having an alternate payment system pretty much meant bypassing the App Store rules, and Apple was not late to react to it.
It pulled Fortnite from the App Store, but Epic didn’t want to comply and it all led up to Epic Games’ developer account with Apple being closed by Cupertino. And then, there was the lawsuit, which started in May 2021.
In the lawsuit, Epic Games alleged that Apple is a monopoly and that it should let developers add alternative payment systems on iOS. All in all, there were ten counts, and in the end, in September 2021, Apple won in nine out of ten counts (the one it lost is the mentioned above “anti-steering” provisions).
Epic filed an appeal on that, then Apple filed a cross-appeal. And that’s where we are now: in 2022, the saga is still ongoing.
