Supreme Court denies requests to review ruling in suit between Fortnite creator and Apple

The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from Fortnite developer Epic Games to a district court’s ruling that the Apple App Store‘s payment policies do not violate federal antitrust law.

The Court also on Tuesday said that it was declining a petition from Apple to review the same decision, which limited some App Store rules.

The two companies had asked the Supreme Court in separate filings to take their appeals of a decision made by the California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld most of the initial decision made by the district court regarding Epic’s lawsuit against Apple in 2021 over its ban on third parties selling products within apps on Apple products without giving Apple a cut.

The Supreme Court did not state its reasons for rejecting the two petitions, nor did it state how many judges were interested in the case.

In August 2020, Epic Games decided to allow Fortnite players to save money by purchasing V-Bucks, the in-game currency, through Epic Games’s website. That decision would cut Apple and Google out as middlemen and not require Epic to pay Apple a 30% fee on the transaction. Apple reciprocated by booting Fortnite from its app store. Epic filed a suit against the company, alleging it was maintaining an “absolute monopoly.”

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The court initially ruled in 2021 that Apple had not breached antitrust law as Epic had originally alleged, but that the company had violated California’s Unfair Competition law and had to amend the app store. The 9th Circuit upheld both decisions in April 2023.

Epic’s case against Google was more successful. A jury decided in December that Google had a monopoly via the Google Play Store. The judge is expected to decide the relief in early 2024.

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