Epic Games filed a notice of appeal on Sunday after a federal judge’s recent decision, which mostly sided with Apple, in one of the tech industry’s biggest lawsuits.
Apple kicked Epic off its app store in August 2020 after it quietly changed code inside Fortnite intended to break both companies’ rules. Apple takes up to a 30% cut of each sale through its payments service, but Epic turned on hidden code that allowed users to buy in-game currency from the company directly, and for a 20% discount. Epic sued, alleging violating antitrust laws.
In her decision, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said she agreed with Apple’s claim that Epic had violated its developer agreements and awarded damages equal to 30% of the $12 million Epic collected from iOS users between August and October 2020, plus 30% of any such revenue Epic’s collected since then. Rogers also said Apple’s rules against allowing developers to direct users to other payment systems was anti-competitive and issued an injunction to allow developers to do so in their apps.
Apple isn’t the only company that Epic is fighting with over these issues. The Fortnite game maker also sued Google last year in a similar disagreement over the handling of payments.
Epic confirmed it had filed the notice but declined to comment further. An Apple representative called Friday’s ruling a resounding victory.
