In what is being celebrated as a major victory for Apple Inc, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stated that its App Store's marketplace policies do not violate anti-trust laws. While the court did find that Apple’s anti-steering provisions—like barring in-app payments—violate state laws, the verdict nonetheless concluded a two-year-long legal battle between the tech-giant and Fortnite-developer Epic Games Inc. What was the conflict about? In 2020, Apple removed the Fortnite game from its App Store and suspended Epic’s developer accounts as the game let users make in-app purchases via Epic’s payment processor rather than through Apple’s billing system. The direct purchase allowed Epic to avoid paying the 30 per cent commission that Apple levies on developers. Epic went to court against Apple, alleging that the company imposed "unreasonable and unlawful restraints" to monopolise the market. In 2021, a district court judgement ruled that Apple did not violate antitrust laws but should not engage in anti-steering. The decision by the court of appeals largely upholds this verdict. Why it matters: Aside from Apple, Epic is also engaged in a legal battle with Google. Like in the above case, Epic accused Google of "unfair, monopolistic and anti-competitive actions... which harm device makers, app developers, app distributors, payment processors, and consumers." Now that even the appeals court has dismissed allegations of antitrust violations against Apple, the judgement may impact the Epic vs. Google case. Similarly, Apple is also facing a separate antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice in the US since…
