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> Your comment makes it sound it sound like Apple is breaking the law. Epic is alleging that Apple is breaking the law. That's the whole point of the antitrust
by henryfjordan 6y ago
> Your comment makes it sound it sound like Apple is breaking the law.
Epic is alleging that Apple is breaking the law. That's the whole point of the antitrust lawsuit, to decide if they are or are not.
> Epic could have brought on this lawsuit while still complying with the App Store rules
No they could not. They needed standing to sue. "Apple is doing what the contract says and we don't like it" does not establish standing. Epic needed to act as though the contract was illegal, suffer some harm, and then they have standing to sue. That's exactly what happened.
You are correct that they could revert their changes and comply for the time being and Apple seems amenable to that.
- nodamage 6y agoEpic already had standing to sue from the $300 million in Fortnite IAP fees Apple has collected. They already "suffered harm", they did not need to do anything further in order to sue.
- henryfjordan 6y agoThe harm was unfair anti-competitive practices, namely being prevented from operating their own payment processor. Until Epic got kicked off the App Store for operating their own payment processor, there was no harm.
- nodamage 6y agoBy being "forced" to use Apple's payment system instead of their own, Epic has already "suffered harm" due to the $300 million in fees they otherwise would not have paid. There was no need to get kicked off the App Store in addition to that. The judge literally recommended Epic undo their "hotfix" and cure the breach of contract while the case continued in court. If for some reason you still do not believe this, I recommend checking with your lawyer.
- modeless 6y agoYou are fixated on this because of my imprecise use of the legal term "standing", but it's not really relevant. Standing to bring a suit that will probably get thrown out on summary judgement is not useful. What's relevant is that there is harm to consumers here and Epic needed to specifically demonstrate it to have a real chance of prevailing in an antitrust case. An allegedly illegal contract should not restrain them from doing so.
- nodamage 6y agoI'm not sure you actually understand the issue, it's not simply a question of terminology. Whether consumer harm exists or not is a question to be determined during the trial, not before.
- modeless 6y agoThe question will be decided during the trial, but the evidence is gathered before.
- nodamage 6y agoYou seem to think if Epic fails to prove consumer harm exists, that their case will not survive summary judgement? This is not true. What Epic needs to do to survive summary judgement is to present a trialable claim that injury to competition has occurred. The trial itself will then determine whether the claim is accurate not. I still don't think Fortnite being in or out of the App Store makes a difference to Epic's case. If Epic's theory of Apple's behavior is correct, then they have a winning case regardless of whatever happened to Fortnite specifically.