
In the ruling, Judge Rogers says that Apple was lawful in its decision to terminate Epic’s developer account last year when it added the Fortnite direct payment option. jobs, and where the rules apply equally to everyone.” Is Fortnite coming back to the App Store? We remain committed to ensuring the App Store is a safe and trusted marketplace that supports a thriving developer community and more than 2.1 million U.S. As the Court recognized ‘success is not illegal.’ Apple faces rigorous competition in every segment in which we do business, and we believe customers and developers choose us because our products and services are the best in the world. “Today the Court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law. The Court does not find that it is impossible only that Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal monopolist.
APPLE VS EPIC RULING TRIAL
The final trial record did not include evidence of other critical factors, such as barriers to entry and conduct decreasing output or decreasing innovation in the relevant market. While the Court finds that Apple enjoys considerable market share of over 55% and extraordinarily high profit margins, these factors alone do not show antitrust conduct. Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws. The court also found that Epic did not support its claims that Apple is a monopolist:
APPLE VS EPIC RULING PLUS
Epic Games shall pay (1) damages in an amount equal to (i) 30% of the $12,167,719 in revenue Epic Games collected from users in the Fortnite app on iOS through Epic Direct Payment between August and October 2020, plus (ii) 30% of any such revenue Epic Games collected from Novemthrough the date of judgment, and interest according to law. On the counterclaim, in favor of Apple on the counterclaim for breach of contract. Judge Rogers did rule in factor of Apple in the company’s claim that Epic breached its App Store contract when it circumvented Apple to add a direct payment option to Fortnite for iOS. During the trial, Judge Rogers specifically referenced an anti-steering credit card case that previously made it to the United States Supreme Court. This refers to Apple’s guidelines that state developers are not allowed to “steer” customers to make digital purchases outside of the App Store. The ruling on Apple’s anti-steering restrictions being anticompetitive is not necessarily a surprise, as this is something Judge Rogers heavily focused on during the trial. Most notably, this includes the highly lucrative games category. As written, this means Apple must allow developers of all applications - not just “Reader” applications - to link out to third-party payment solutions. The injunction is set to go into effect in 90-days.
APPLE VS EPIC RULING REGISTRATION
Those changes by themselves are not enough to satisfy the new ruling from Judge Rogers, however.Īpple Inc. and its officers, agents, servants, employees, and any person in active concert or participation with them (“Apple”), are hereby permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app. The ruling from Judge Rogers comes after Apple has already announced a handful of App Store changes over the past week, including allowing developers of “Reader” applications to link out to a website for account management.

Judge Rogers has issued a permanent injunction saying that Apple can no longer forbid developers from directing users to third-party payment options. Just over three months after the conclusion of the trial, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has handed down her ruling in the Apple vs.
