Apple and Epic Games Seek Review of Antitrust Ruling

In a bid to revisit the antitrust case ruling from April, Apple and Epic Games have filed separate petitions with the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting that the case be reheard by an expanded 11-judge panel. According to Reuters, both companies have submitted court petitions, each seeking an 'en banc' review of the initial ruling made by a three-judge panel in April. Apple's petition claims that Epic failed to provide sufficient evidence of harm resulting from Apple's practices, stating that 'the panel compounded its error by affirming a nationwide UCL injunction in a case brought by an individual, non-representative plaintiff that did not even establish injury to itself, let alone the kind of injury justifying classwide relief.' Epic, on the other hand, argues that while the court acknowledged Apple's right to charge developers a license fee as an alternative to excluding competition for in-app purchases, the ruling sets an unfair precedent. Epic's petition cautions that 'that high bar could perhaps work if the competitive benefits and harms of the walled-garden approach are robustly considered at a final balancing step,' but notes that 'it plainly undermines the antitrust laws to adopt a rule where any practice that saves administrative costs is ultimately greenlighted, no matter how exclusionary it is or how much consumer harm it generates.' Notably, en banc requests are rarely granted, with only 12 out of 646 petitions approved last year. This request for review comes nearly two months after Apple's successful appeal against Epic's antitrust lawsuit, in which the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upheld the 2021 ruling that rejected nine out of ten claims made by Epic, although it did find Apple to be in violation of California's anti-steering law for directing app users to alternative payment methods.