Epic's antitrust case against Apple looks dead in the water
Apple has emerged largely victorious in the latest round of a legal battle with Epic Games, which focuses on antitrust laws and the way the App Store is run. Epic's suit, sparked by various shenanigans around the hugely popular Fortnite, says that Apple's marketplace violates federal law by banning third parties from using their own payment platforms on the operating system: That is, it's a monopoly.
The suit began in 2020 after Epic updated Fortnite on iOS with a payment workaround, which would bypass Apple's usual 30% cut. In response, Apple promptly banned the app. Essentially this is all about the cut the platform-holder is taking from third party developers, and whether those developers should have the right to implement their own payment systems. The 2021 judgement in the case largely sided with Apple though gave Epic one win in finding that certain restrictions of the App Store were anti-competitive, and since that Apple has been actively working to address those concerns.
The latest ruling comes from the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (thanks, Bloomberg), and affirms the 2021 decision by a lower court that mostly rejected Epic's claims. The panel of three judges acknowledge the «lively and important debate about the role played in our economy and democracy by online transaction platforms with market power» but noted its role was not to attempt to resolve that debate but apply «existing precedent to the facts.»
The previous ruling did conclude that Apple's iOS policies stopped consumers from getting cheaper prices, but rejected Epic's claims that this constituted a monopoly in violation of federal antitrust law. The appeals court did think the lower court had «erred» in its definition of the appropriate
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