U.S. Justice Department officials have been asked to participate in the oral arguments of the “Fortnite” developer Epic Games next month’s appeal against Apple after losing the case. Epic and Apple have no objection, but Apple wants regulators to take the Epic case debate elsewhere, or give it extra time.
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Epic sued Apple in 2020, saying the iPhone maker’s app store rules violated antitrust laws because they required developers to pay up to 30% of in-app purchases.
This case has continued to this day, and Apple has won, and the court has allowed Apple to keep the same percentage. Antitrust experts say Epic’s loss could lead to the Justice Department losing legal avenues to pursue Apple’s monopoly, which has been under investigation since 2019.
Epic is dissatisfied with the verdict of the case, so it appeals, and the two sides will conduct oral arguments in the U.S. ninth circuit court of appeals on October 21, when Apple and Epic will each have 20 minutes to state their respective situations.
In January of this year, the Justice Department filed a brief to intervene in the case. Antitrust officials said they did not support either party in the current dispute, but were concerned that the lower court’s ruling misinterpreted the Sherman act, the mainstay of U.S. antitrust law.
“The United States believes that its participation in oral arguments will assist the court, particularly in explaining how the error (in the interpretation of the antitrust law) significantly impairs antitrust enforcement outside the specific context of this case,” the Justice Department wrote in the filing. ”
