Epic Games’ opening brief in its appeal to the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals is due Dec. 12, according to a court filing and
Apple’s reply is due by Jan. 20, 2022. The full appeal process could take
years.
Mr. Sweeney took to Twitter on Wednesday, calling out
Apple’s move and said the company will continue to fight the tech giant.
“This is another extraordinary anticompetitive move by
Apple, demonstrating their power to reshape markets and choose winners and
losers,” Mr. Sweeney said on Twitter.
The two companies have been locked in a legal dispute since
August last year when the game maker tried to get around Apple’s 30% fee on
some in-app purchases on the App Store by launching its own in-app payment
system.
The U.S. tech giant is facing a raft of other legal and
regulatory challenges to rules it forces game makers to follow, including the
closely watched antitrust lawsuit brought by Epic Games.
Apple confirmed the authenticity of the letter that Mr.
Sweeney shared, but declined to comment further. Apple has not yet said whether
it will ask for the injunction to be paused pending the appeal process.
“Epic committed an intentional breach of contract, and
breach of trust, by concealing code from Apple and making related misrepresentations
and omissions,” the iPhone maker told Epic Games, according to the letter
shared by Mr. Sweeney.
Developers have long criticized Apple’s commissions of
between 15% and 30% on many App Store purchases, what some developers see as an
opaque and unpredictable app-vetting process.
Earlier this month, a U.S. federal judge struck down some of
Apple’s App Store rules, forcing the company to allow developers to send their
users to other payment systems in a partial win for Epic Games and other app
makers.
Apple’s shares were up 1.3% at $145.26 on Wednesday -Reuters.
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