Apple and Epic Games have been battling in court for years over a disagreement over the App Store’s 30% platform cut, which led to the removal of Fortnite from the storefront. Now, Apple’s attorneys has requested that the Supreme Court weigh in on an injunction from the Ninth Circuit that currently prevents Apple from using its “anti-steering rules” against iOS app developers.
An anti-steering rule is a legal term that basically means that these developers can’t offer out-of-app payment methods with in-app links, which is exactly what Epic Games tried to do back in 2020. Per VGC, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Apple can’t prevent developers from including these links or buttons that take players to non-App Store payment options, which would obviously prevent Apple from collecting its 30% cut on those transactions.
Though Apple suffered this defeat in this latest juncture in the case, the overall direction of the legal battle has been largely decided in the iPhone maker’s favor. The Ninth Circuit mostly upheld a previous ruling that did not find muster in Epic’s claims that Apple’s iOS platform violates certain federal laws intended to prevent anticompetitive market behavior. It’s unclear if the Supreme Court will take the case on appeal, but if it does, the resulting ruling will likely have a large impact on not only the major video game platform holders, but digital marketplaces in general.
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