Apple won an appellate court ruling upholding the company's ban on third-party sales in apps, a decision with significant implications for the growing antitrust pressure on Big Tech app platforms from the courts, the White House, and Congress.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Monday affirmed a lower court ruling in Apple v. Epic Games, dismissing the claims of the Fortnite publisher. Epic alleged that Apple's App Store policies violated federal law by preventing it from selling its in-game currency directly to players instead of having Apple process all transactions through its App Store. The decision comes several months after Apple began changing its policies to allow third-party app stores.
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The underlying business clash has led a bipartisan group of legislators to advance the Open Apps Market Act, a bill that would require third-party app sellers to be approved.
"There is a lively and important debate about the role played in our economy and democracy by online transaction platforms with market power. Our job as a federal court of appeals, however, is not to resolve that debate — nor could we even attempt to do so. Instead, in this decision, we faithfully applied existing precedent to the facts," the three judges wrote in their decision.
Epic Games sued Apple in August 2020 after the iPhone maker banned Fortnite from being downloaded because the app allows users to buy its premium currency, V-Bucks, through the in-game interface. Epic Games's decision to let people buy V-Bucks within the app violated Apple's App Store policies, which charge a 30% tax on all transactions.
The lower court judge decided in favor of Apple on nine out of 10 charges, stating that its policies did not violate federal antitrust law. However, it did force the company to allow apps to display information about alternate ways to make purchases than the App Store.
Engineers at Apple were working on changing the App Store to adapt to demands from European regulators in December.
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The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a report in February arguing for the Biden administration to pass antitrust tech legislation.
The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the Open App Markets Act in February 2022. The bill has yet to be refiled in the latest congressional term.