UK antitrust tribunal blocks Epic's complaint against Apple's Fortnite ban

[Cal Jeffrey]

In brief: Epic attempted to open another antitrust case with Apple and Google in the UK over the Fortnite dustup. Britain's Competition Appeal Tribunal said it would hear the lawsuit against Google but was not ready to deliberate on its gripe with Apple until the US proceedings concluded.

A United Kingdom antitrust court says that Epic Games cannot proceed with its complaint against Apple for its banning of Fortnite back in August. Last month, Epic testified against Apple and Google with the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

On Monday, the CAT ruled against Epic, saying that while the developer can continue pursuing its lawsuit against Google in the UK, it should allow its grievance with Apple to play out in US courts. However, its decision did not expressly exclude the case from proceeding in the future. Indeed, Epic issued a statement saying it intends to pick the matter up again at a later date.

"Epic will reconsider pursuing its case against Apple in the UK after the resolution of the US case," said an Epic spokesperson told Reuters.

Epic Games has been butting heads with Apple over its "App Store tax" since last August when it intentionally subverted policies by updating Fortnite to include an alternate payment method for in-app purchases. The move subsequently got the hugely popular game banned from both the App Store and from Google Play.

The battle between Google and Epic has been comparatively subdued compared to the boisterous and very public spat with Apple. Epic has cast Apple as the evil corporate villain (above) from its own 1984 satirical Macintosh ad, while Apple has called Epic a "saboteur" and published emails from CEO Tim Sweeney.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/88710-uk-antitrust-tribunal-blocks-epic-complaint-against-apple.html

 

[terzaerian]

If you can count on government to do one thing, it's to kick the can down the road

 

[punctualturn]

Once again, the power of marketing wins!

Since Apple is everyones darling, they dont want to go after them until the US does.

So the UK law is simply irrelevant?

If the US rules against Epic (very likely, again, Apple does no wrong), then the UK will simply rule the same, even if their laws are broken?

Really interesting.

 

[Darth Shiv]

Once again, the power of marketing wins!

Since Apple is everyones darling, they dont want to go after them until the US does.

So the UK law is simply irrelevant?

If the US rules against Epic (very likely, again, Apple does no wrong), then the UK will simply rule the same, even if their laws are broken?

Really interesting.

In this case, I agree with Apple. Epic broke the terms of service. Apple is NOT a monopoly. They have a minority of world marketshare for smartphones and they have a closed ecosystem that was founded on the pricing and T&C that exist today. Nothing has changed. That's their model and they provide the service with the costs attached. Epic deliberately broke T&C not challenged the legality first. So I have absolutely no sympathy for them. They went ***-end about it.

 

[CrisisDog]

As Android can be side-loaded with other App stores, and even applications, I see no wrong doing on Google's behalf, even though I do disagree with the 30% take on all purchases. Apple on the other hand has no ability to load applications other than "rooting" the device, which in my eyes does put them in a monopoly.