The ongoing legal battle between Epic Games and Apple has fired up again recently after a district-court injunction led Epic to attempt to get Fortnite back on the US App Store for the first time in five years. Apple has since blocked the submission, and Epic is appealing to the court to uphold its injunction against Apple.
After Apple left the Fortnite submission unaddressed for over a week, it finally responded to Epic to block Fortnite’s return in the US. Apple has said that it won’t take action on the Fortnite submission “until after the Ninth Circuit rules on our pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction,” a move Epic believes is in violation of the injunction itself. In response, Epic has filed a second Motion to Enforce Injunction with the California district court in question.
Epic Games managed to get Fortnite back on iPhones in Europe last year, thanks to the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, but the game is currently offline again in the EU due to the ongoing drama with the US App Store.
In a letter sent by Apple, the company suggests Epic resubmit Fortnite only for EU territories “to prevent our discussions surrounding the US storefront of the App Store from impacting Fortnite in other geographies.” The letter further recommends submitting Fortnite to the US App Store “separately through an entity other than Epic Sweden,” but Epic’s response suggests this recommendation is in violation of Apple’s own guidelines.
“That’s not the standard Apple holds other developers to and it’s blocking us from releasing our update in the EU and US,” Epic says. “Apple is again retaliating against Epic for challenging the legality of their anticompetitive behavior and we will fight on.”
The next step in this legal battle is now with the courts, with Apple having filed a request for partial stay with the Ninth Circuit Court, and Epic filing a Motion to Enforce Injunction with the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The district court judge who filed the latest injunction against Apple has also referred the case to a US criminal attorney for possible contempt charges.
