The Legal War Between Apple and Epic Games Is Heating Up

Apple and Epic Games are currently engaged in an intense legal battle related to App Store fees and Apple’s ban on third-party payment processors. The arguments each company plan to present in court are becoming clearer as their showdown in court approaches.

Bloomberg reports that Apple plans to argue at trial that consumers and developers could suffer if Epic Games is allowed to alter how App Store fees and payment processing works. Epic Games reportedly plans to argue that Apple’s “anti-competitive” conduct allows it to profit at the expense of developers. The first court date has been set for May 3, 2021.

Bloomberg reports:

In a summary of its legal arguments, Apple contends the 30% commission it charges most developers isn’t anticompetitive, but that it’s a typical fee across other mobile and online platforms. Moreover, Apple argues that taking a share of the revenue is justified by the billions of dollars it has invested in developing the proprietary infrastructure that underpins its App Store in the company’s iOS operating system, including software development kits and application programming interfaces.

Apple’s court submission states: “Epic has benefited handsomely from its contractual relationship with Apple. Epic has used Apple’s proprietary SDKs, and thousands of proprietary APIs to develop games for iOS users.”

Bloomberg outlined Epic’s argument stating:

The maker of Fortnite, which Apple removed from its store last year, accuses the iPhone maker’s app store of being an illegal monopoly because developers are barred from making their iPhone and iPad apps available through their own websites.

Epic said in its filing that Apple harms innovation and uses its control over iOS to monopolize app distribution. Users of iOS don’t agree to buy apps only through the App Store and “Apple conditions developers’ access to the billions of iOS users on contractual restrictions that cement Apple’s control over all iOS app distribution,” according to Epic’s filing.

Epic is arguing for the removal of restrictions on apps on the App Store; however, Apple argues that that Epic overlooks the benefits of Apple’s app review process such as protecting users’ privacy and preventing malware from harming users.