The UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal has dismissed Epic Games' claim against Apple, in which the developer iPhone were accused of monopolistic practices. In its lawsuit, Epic Games claimed that Apple "not only harmed but completely eliminated competition" with respect to distribution and payments applications in the popular app store, with "a series of carefully designed restrictions of competition".
The two companies have been engaged in a legal dispute since August 2020, when Apple (like Google) removed the Fortnite from its App Store, in response to Epic Games implementing an in-app payment system for its Play, to bypass the payment of the 30% commission fee in these stores.
Judge Peter Roth, has ruled that the lawsuit against Apple does not fall within the jurisdiction of the British court. Thus, the court found that it was not responsible to take a decision on which Applications may or may not be provided through the Apple App Store and, therefore, the case cannot be made that the UK arm of Apple has acted anti-competitively.
Since the UK Court of Justice dismissed the lawsuit, the number of lawsuits Epic Games has filed against Apple is reduced to three. The remaining legal proceedings, filed in Australia, the USA and the EU specifically target Apple's app distribution and payment processes.
Epic Games has provided similar arguments in all of its lawsuits, saying it is not seeking damages from Apple, but wants regulators to address the tech giant's alleged anti-competitive behavior.
Epic alleged in its US claim, which was the first of the lawsuits filed, the following: "Apple has become what it once opposed: The megalomaniac seeking to control markets, block competition and stifle innovation. Apple is bigger, more powerful, more entrenched and more pernicious than the monopolies of last year. At a market cap of almost $2 trillion, Apple's size and reach far exceeds the technology monopoly in history."
Over the weekend, Apple called the Valve to provide information about the company's annual sales, revenue and prices for its Steam store apps as part of its legal dispute with Epic Games. Although Valve is not a party to the Epic Games-Apple dispute, Apple has requested this information as it claims it is necessary to calculate the size and market definition for its case.
Valve has provided a small set of documents, but Apple says they are "so heavily censored" that the company can't discern anything from them. Essentially, Apple is once again asking Valve to provide documents showing a series of numbers related to the platform Steam. According to the document, these include "total annual in-app and in-app sales, annual ad revenue from Steam, annual sales of external products attributed to Steam, annual revenue from Steam, and annual profits (gross or net) from Steam."
Valve said it would be "a huge job" to produce even a single point as part of the request data, highlighting one of Apple's specific requests, which asked it to identify the "sale dates, plus any price and price change" of 436 games found on both the Epic Game Store and Steam from 2015 to date.
Furthermore, Valve pointed out that Apple's "excessive demands impose an enormous burden on a non-party to the legal dispute" and that the company has not shown that it has a "substantial need" for the information it seeks.
 του Ηνωμένου Βασιλείου απέρριψε την αγωγή της Epic Games εναντίον της Apple.){kind=link}