Epic just won its antitrust lawsuit against Google again

Epic has won again. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will not overturn the unanimous jury verdict from 2023 that Google’s app store and payments system had become illegal monopolies. Today, that appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision in Epic v. Google, according to an full opinion you can read below — and Google will now appeal to the Supreme Court, the company confirms to The Verge.

Judge M. Margaret McKeown begins her opinion for the court:

In the world of adrenaline-fueled survival that epitomizes the video game Fortnite, winners are decided in blazes of destruction and glory. By contrast, the outcome of this case—centered on Fortnite’s developer, Epic Games, and the Google Android platform—turns on longstanding principles of trial procedure, antitrust, and injunctive remedies.

“Total victory in the Epic v Google appeal!” tweets Epic CEO Tim Sweeney.

Google will appeal: “This decision will significantly harm user safety, limit choice, and undermine the innovation that has always been central to the Android ecosystem. Our top priority remains protecting our users, developers and partners, and maintaining a secure platform as we continue our appeal,” writes Google global of regulatory affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland in a statement shared with The Verge.

Epic originally sued both Google and Apple in 2020 over the removal of its hit game Fortnite from both stores, though the case was far more complicated than that. Epic intentionally used Fortnite as a wedge to challenge the app store monopolies, and in the case of Apple, it mostly lost.

But Epic v. Google turned out to be a very different case, we saw when attending the trial in person and reading all the receipts. A jury saw secret revenue sharing deals between Google, smartphone makers, and game developers. The jury saw internal emails between Google execs that suggested Google was scared of how Epic might convince its fellow game developers to join or create rival app stores, creating unwanted competition for Google. Here are a few thoughts about why Epic won against Google, but not Apple.

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