Game developer Epic Games recently filed a document with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the court to reject Apple's two appeals against both parties' antitrust lawsuits. It believes that Apple's legal claims are "completely wrong" and if adopted will overturn key parts of the previous case that were unfavorable to Apple.
The "Apple v. Epic" case that has been fighting for many years has made waves again. Apple previously filed a request with the Supreme Court, claiming that the lower court "got it wrong" in two important aspects: first, the injunction against its App Store "anti-steering" rules went beyond the scope of the case itself; second, the lower court found Apple's violation on the grounds of violating the "spirit" rather than the "letter" of the law, which is inconsistent with the way the law is applied. Apple contends that the court should not judge whether the ban has been violated based on the so-called "legislative spirit" but should rely on the specific words of the ban.
In its latest 35-page submission, Epic refutes Apple’s arguments point by point in an attempt to persuade the Supreme Court not to accept Apple’s request. Regarding the "spirit vs. letter" dispute, Epic cited the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and pointed out that the court has never found Apple in contempt of court on the premise that "the text of the injunction allows Apple to take commissions, but the spirit of the injunction prohibits commissions." Instead, it made its judgment based on the wording of the injunction itself and Apple's subsequent implementation.
In the original case, the court issued an injunction against Apple's anti-introduction behavior, requiring it not to prevent developers from guiding users to use other payment methods within the app. Apple subsequently dismantled the original anti-diversion rules as required, but through new permissions and review mechanisms, it imposed restrictions on the way developers can guide users to jump to external payments, and introduced new commission arrangements. The court previously held that although Apple formally fulfilled the ban, it still hindered the conduct of illegal products in substantive effect, thus constituting a violation of the "spirit" of the ban. In this opinion, Epic denies that this determination is a "spiritual only" referee approach, and emphasizes that this is a normal application of the full effect of the ban.
The second point of contention concerns the so-called exception established by CASA jurisprudence. Apple argued that this case was not a class action, so based on CASA jurisprudence, the original injunction should be limited to Epic and should not be extended to a wider group of developers; based on this, Apple believed that the Ninth Circuit Court actually created an exception for CASA. Epic stated in the filing that Apple's statement was "difficult to understand" and quoted the original text of the Ninth Circuit Court saying that the court still applies the standard established by CASA when judging the scope of the injunction, that is, "the key is whether the injunction can provide complete relief to the plaintiffs currently before the court." Epic believes that this standard has not been broken, and there is no so-called "CASA exception".
The dispute surrounding whether the ban should only protect Epic or have a broader market impact is directly related to the boundaries of rules that Apple can maintain in the App Store ecosystem in the future, and therefore has become a focus of the battle between the two parties in the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court accepts Apple's arguments regarding the scope and applicable standards of the ban, it may weaken or even overturn key existing restrictions that are unfavorable to Apple; this is why Epic is eager to use strong language to persuade the Supreme Court to reject the case.
In the latest report, the author also emphasized that he is not a legal professional and pointed out that how Apple’s appeal will ultimately be handled will be decided by the Supreme Court. According to current progress estimates, the Supreme Court may make a decision on whether to accept the case and related procedures as early as June this year, which will also set the tone for the next stage of this protracted "Apple vs. Epic" battle.