Appleplans to petition for its Epic Games case to be heard in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The move will mark its second appellate request in the proceedings, asApple already appealed the first-instance verdict in the Epic Games casein late 2021.
The ongoing legal clash started in 2020, when Epic implemented changes intoFortnitein an effort to bypass Apple’s payment processing mechanisms and avoid paying a 30% cut from the game’s microtransactions to the iPhone maker. Apple then pulledFortnitefrom the App Store, which prompted Epic to launch an antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant. And while Apple’s countersuit filed in response to that move was soon dismissed, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in its favor on nine out of ten counts in the original case. However, thecourt also ruled that Apple must allow third-party purchase options in appsas part of the same verdict.
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After the U.S. Ninth CircuitCourt of Appeals mostly upheld that decision in the Epic Games v. Apple casethis past April, the iPhone maker is now looking to petition the Supreme Court to reconsider the second-instance verdict. In a July 3 court filing obtained by Reuters, Apple argued that the appeals court’s decision to issue a nationwide injunction against Apple due to its alleged violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law constitutes judicial overreach. For context, the said ruling stems from the court’s finding that Apple’s anti-steering policies preventing developers from directing or even so much as informing its users about third-party iOS storefronts were anticompetitive.
Although Apple intends to continue fighting the actual contents of that decision, it has now requested a stay of the court’s mandate on the basis that a nationwide injunction against its anti-steering practices is a disproportional reaction to its alleged violations of California’s antitrust law. The tech giant’s attorneys also argued that the original lawsuit only had a single plaintiff, Epic, concluding that the court’s mandate to stop Apple from enforcing its anti-steering policies against all developers of iOS apps available in the U.S. is hence an overreaction.
WhileAppleis arguing that its petition to the Supreme Court has a decent chance of being heard due to the “substantial questions of law” it raises, it remains to be seen whether the ultimate appellate authority in the U.S. agrees with that sentiment. According to the official website of the stateside judicial system, the Supreme Court is asked to review over 7,000 cases each year, but only agrees to hear “about 100-150” such petitions on an annual basis.
In 2021, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said thatFortnitewon’t be returning to iOS for around five or more yearsdue to the company’s ongoing legal clash with Apple. However, his latest celebratory New Year’s tweet suggested that the game will reappear on the App Store sometime in 2023.
