As Bloomberg reported, the North American Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals backs a judge’s 2021 ruling, which said Apple would not have violated federal antitrust laws by not clearing the titles. Epic Games on the iOS platform. This legal battle between Apple and Epic Games has been going on for a long time, as Epic will sue Apple in early August 2020 for an alleged violation of US antitrust laws.
The reason for this was the removal of Fortnite from the Apple Store platform and the cancellation of Epic’s dev account, as the studio allegedly circumvented the platform’s 30% fee. In 2021, a trial took place where a federal judge denied the claim. Epic, as expected, appealed the decision, although in the end most courts found themselves in favor of Apple.
The court said that “there is a lively and important debate about the role they play in our economy and our democracy, but our job as a federal appeals court is not to resolve that debate. Instead, in this decision, we faithfully apply the existing precedent to the facts”.
After that, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney asked Apple to re-enable developer accounts in Fornite, making sure they adhere to the guidelines set out by the tech giant. The answer was a resounding ‘no’, at least until the whole legal process was over.