In the latest escalation of the ongoing legal battle between Epic Games and tech giant Apple, the Fortnite developer has asked the Supreme Court to review an earlier ruling from a lower court. The lower court ruling, which cleared Apple of violating antitrust laws with the terms of its iOS App Store, is now being disputed by Epic’s legal team.
Epic Games files an appeal
As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the appeal by Epic seeks to urge the Supreme Court to issue a broader ruling on antitrust issues that have led to a years-long dispute between it and Apple. As part of the appeal, the Fortnite developer wants the court to determine whether Apple’s rules limiting iOS users to only making app purchases through its official App Store violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. According to a report by Bloomberg, this latest legal effort comes after the Supreme Court rejected a previous request from Epic to allow developers to direct iOS users to purchasing options outside of Apple’s official App Store.
At the center of this latest appeal is whether restraints, or lack thereof, on Apple’s ability to limit users’ ability to purchase apps from outside the App Store runs afoul of the Sherman Act. According to an analysis by GamesBeat, Epic contends that restraints on business which “have both pro- and anticompetitive effects is unlawful if a ‘less-restrictive alternative’ will achieve the same benefits while harming competition less.” The Unreal Engine publisher wants the court to determine whether a “less-restrictive alternative” must be free from costs to Apple and, if no such alternative exists, whether such restraints are invalid “if the harm to competition substantially outweighs” any procompetitive justifications.
The high-profile legal dispute between the two tech giants has been ongoing for several years at this point with no clear end in sight. Epic has consistently claimed that Apple’s monopoly on iOS app sales and in-app purchases runs afoul of the law, unjustly enriching the Cupertino company to the detriment of consumers and developers. Both Apple and Epic have seen lower courts rule in their favor throughout the lengthy legal wranglings, though these sometimes-contradictory rulings have only served to further draw out the case. This ongoing legal battle led to Epic’s most profitable property being removed from the Apple App Store in 2020, though Fortnite returned to phones in 2022 after being added to Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud gaming platform.
