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The ongoing battle between Epic Games and Apple now comes with even more legal action – with Epic Games calling for a court order to get Fortnite back on the App Store.
Today we asked the Court to stop Apple’s retaliation against Epic for daring to challenge its unlawful restrictions while our antitrust case proceeds. This is a necessary step to free consumers and developers from Apple’s costly, anti-competitive control. https://t.co/r2XxhitjMp
— Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) September 5, 2020
On Friday the 4th of September, Epic Games filed for a preliminary injunction that would put Fortnite back on the App Store, and restore Epic’s developer account. Epic argues that it is “likely to suffer irreparable harm,” without a preliminary injunction, and that “the balance of harms tips sharply in Epic’s favor”.
The company recently won a previous preliminary injunction against Apple, when a judge ruled that Apple is restrained from blocking Unreal Engine on iOS, when Epic successfully argued that this would damage third party developers.
In the filing, Epic accuses Apple of being a monopolist, stating:
“Apple is a monopolist. It controls all app distribution on iOS. It controls all in-app payment processing for digital content on iOS. It unlawfully maintains these two monopolies by explicitly prohibiting any competitive entry in either market. It is highly likely to lose this case.”
In an email conversation between Epic and Apple, included in the 182 page filing, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney states:
“If Apple someday chooses to return to its roots building open platforms in which consumers have freedom to install software from sources of their choosing, and developers can reach consumers and do business directly without intermediation, then Epic will once again be an ardent supporter of Apple. Until then, Epic is in a state of substantial disagreement with Apple’s policy and practices, and we will continue to pursue this, as we have done in the past to address other injustices in our industry.”
