Apple has again emerged victorious in its long-running legal battle with Epic Games.
As reported byBloomberg, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower-court judge’s 2021 ruling largely rejectingEpic’s claims thatAppleviolated federal law by not allowing any competing marketplaces on itsiOSplatform.
Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against the iPhone maker began in August 2020 after itmoved to circumvent Apple’s 30% platform feeswith a new direct payment option inFortnite, leading tothe game’s removal from the App Storeand thetermination of Epic’s developer account.
After the lower courtjudge in the case ruled against Epicin nine of the 10 counts it had brought against Apple, the companyannounced it would appeal the decision.
“There is a lively and important debate about the role played in our economy and democracy by online transaction platforms with market power,” the three-judge appeals panel said in the case’s latest ruling.
“Our job as a federal court of appeals, however, is not to resolve that debate — nor could we even attempt to do so. Instead, in this decision, we faithfully applied existing precedent to the facts.”
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Following the original ruling, Epic CEOTim Sweeneywrote to Apple asking it to reactivate the company’s Fortnite developer account and promising to “adhere to Apple’s guidelines whenever and wherever we release products on Apple platforms”.
But Apple rejected the request and said itwouldn’t consider letting Fortnite back on the App Storeuntil its legal battle with Epic was complete.
