In 2020, a legal fight began between Apple and Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite. The conflict started when Epic Games tried to bypass App Store rules by providing direct payment links, causing Apple to remove Fortnite from the App Store. Since then, the two companies have been involved in a continuous legal dispute.
Judge Not Satisfied with Apple’s Request for More Time in Epic Case
t the end of last week, Apple attempted—and failed—to persuade Judge Thomas S. Hixson, who manages the document discovery process, to extend the deadline for submitting important documents in its legal battle with Epic Games.
On September 26, Apple argued that the number of records to review was much larger than expected and requested extra time. However, the judge firmly stated that September 30 “is indeed the deadline” and rejected Apple’s request to delay producing 1.3 million documents.
This is just another part of the ongoing conflict between Apple and Epic Games, which has been challenging Apple’s App Store rules. While Apple had a mostly favorable outcome in the U.S. district court, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who oversaw the Epic lawsuit, ordered Apple to relax some App Store policies, allowing developers more freedom to collect payments and subscriptions without using Apple’s in-app payment system. This led Apple to implement changes in January. However, since Apple still takes a cut from those payments, Epic is now accusing the company of acting in “bad faith.”
In August, the judge ordered iphoneto provide all documents related to its new App Store rules. But last week, Apple claimed that Epic’s search terms returned more than twice the expected number of records, and it needed an additional two weeks to review over 1.3 million files. Nevertheless, Judge Thomas S. Hixson not only denied Apple’s request for an extension but also suggested that the delay might be an attempt to avoid revealing any negative information.
Hixson noted that Apple had ample time to collect and review the documents. He even suggested that with its “nearly infinite resources,” the company could likely go through all the documents in just one weekend.
Now we will find out if the tech giant actually managed to review and organize all those documents over the weekend. However, it’s clear that this legal battle between the two companies is far from finished and will likely continue for a long time.