Epic wants the court to compel Apple to approve Fortnite's return to the US App Store
Epic has filed a "second motion to enforce injunction," asking the US District Court for the Northern District of California to force Apple to do a timely review of its Fortnite app and to approve its submission if it's compliant. The company recently accused Apple of blocking Fortnite's return to the App Store in both the US and the EU. Epic submitted the app for approval after winning its case against the iPhone-maker. Specifically, after the court ordered Apple to stop collecting commissions on purchases that weren't paid through the App Store and to allow external payment links in-app.
After Epic said that Apple was blocking Fortnite's return to the App Store, the tech giant wrote a letter addressed to the video game developer. In it, Apple said it will not take action on Epic's submission "until after the Ninth Circuit rules on [its] pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction." It told Epic to resubmit the app to the EU storefront separately from its US submission. Apple, of course, filed an appeal against the court's order to stop charging commissions for payments made outside the App Store. It also filed an emergency motion to put a pause on the order prohibiting it from charging commissions, telling the court that it will cost the company "substantial sums annually."
In a post on X, Epic said that Apple's suggestion to submit two different versions of Fortnite for review is in violation of its own guideline that prohibits developers from submitting multiple versions of the same app. "That’s not the standard Apple holds other developers to and it’s blocking us from releasing our update in the EU and US," it wrote. Epic also asserted that its submission didn't break any rules this time. Apple's denial, the video game developer claimed in its filing, is a "blatant retaliation against Epic for challenging Apple’s anticompetitive behavior and exposing its lies to the Court, culminating in the Injunction and the Contempt Order."
Yesterday afternoon, Apple broke its week-long silence on the status of our app review with a letter saying they will not act on the Fortnite app submission until the Ninth Circuit Court rules on the partial stay. We believe this violates the Court’s Injunction and we have filed…— Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) May 17, 2025
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/epic-wants-the-court-to-compel-apple-to-approve-fortnites-return-to-the-us-app-store-123054703.html?src=rss
