Apple And Epic Games Feud Reaches US Supreme Court

Apple is making a last ditch effort against Epic Games, in order to keep its practice of taking a cut of any and all in-app sales made on its App Store – by taking its appeal against the decisions from two lower courts to the US Supreme Court. According to Reuters, the lower courts had ruled that the company from Cupertino must drop its guidelines that prevented apps from including their own payment options.

For the uninitiated, the fight between Apple and Epic Games began back in 2020, when the latter launched its direct payment option for Fortnite for Apple users. Hours after the act, Apple responded to Epic Games’ defiance by removing the Unreal Engine owner’s game from the App Store altogether, stating later that the company had violated its guidelines and releasing a feature that was neither reviewed nor approved.

Since then, the back and forth between Apple and Epic Games has both sides win and lose some battles in court. In 2021, a US District Court judge ruled that Epic had knowingly violated the fruit company’s rules on in-app payments, and that it wasn’t necessary for it to add Fortnite back into the App Store. However, the same judge also ruled that, while the brand didn’t act like a monopoly, it still had to provide app developers and consumers with third-party payment systems. That decision went into effect just last year, with the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the decision.

Clearly, Apple doesn’t agree with the second half of that ruling and its lawyers plan to argue it to the Supreme Court by saying that the ruling extends beyond Epic Games and that it “exceeds the district court’s authority under the Article III of the country’s constitution”, which limits federal court jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies.

(Source: Reuters, Engadget)

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