Epic Games appeals ruling in Apple antitrust case

• BySheetal Sidhu     |    September 13, 2021

Epic Games, creator of Fortnite has filed a notice of appeal days following a judgment made for its US antitrust lawsuit against Apple. In a bid to win more rights for developers, after losing their Fortnite lawsuit against Apple and needing to pay $3.5m in damages, Epic Games has decided to appeal the decision. Epic plans to call on a higher court to take another look at the case and potentially overturn the original ruling.

In the Epic Games vs Apple lawsuit, on Friday, a judge handed over mixed decisions. While the rulings ask Apple to relax a bit on developers and allow them to place external links in applications to inform users about a fully-functional payment mechanism outside the application, the ruling does not reduce the 15 to 30% cut that Apple can keep on in-app payments.

Epic’s lawsuit against Apple began in August 2020 when Fortnite had its developer account withdrawn after beginning to offer in-app purchases through Epic’s own system as opposed to using Apple’s payment option. Epic Games then filed various antitrust lawsuits against Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of conducting anti-competitive and monopolistic practices due to their 30% commission fee structures.

This case is part of Epic’s global campaign against the world’s most valuable company. Epic, which took in more than $5 billion from Fortnite last year, also has filed complaints against Apple in the European Union, U.K., and Australia, and the game maker is suing Google over its Google Play store.

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