In response to the legal tug-of-war with Apple, Epic Games has just submitted a new brief, claiming that Apple’s representation not only misled the court, but the judge also made a mistake in understanding the market. In an appeal response brief filed Wednesday, Epic Games highlighted that the U.S. District Court “committed multiple legal errors in dismissing Epic’s Sherman Antitrust Act claim.”
In the original lawsuit, Epic claimed that Apple violated antitrust laws by blocking access to the App Store. The Sherman Act laid down the principles of free trade and competition in the United States, but Apple, on its part, abused the market dominance of the App Store as an infrastructure.
On the court side, Epic Games claimed that the judge made a mistake in upholding Apple’s restrictive policy: “The court was aware of significant anticompetitive effects, but erroneously held that there was no procompetitive reason and ignored the fact that Epic established a less restrictive alternative. Findings”.
As for the so-called “would weaken Apple’s iOS security” argument, Epic cites the Mac platform as an example, which is fairly secure even if it doesn’t have the same restrictions as iOS. However, during the trial, Apple also made it clear that the level of anti-malware software on macOS is not enough.
It is reported that after a lengthy trial, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled in a more favorable way for Apple in September 2021, but the two companies appealed in other respects.
In a briefing to the court in March, Apple argued that Epic Games’ original lawsuit was deeply flawed and that the company failed to prove that Apple acted improperly.