Apple asked the American district court in Northern California to suspend the application of the new rules of the App Store after its recent defeat against EPIC Games.
In the emergency request filed on Wednesday, Apple asked for a suspension on the court injunction, which currently requires that the company authorizes developers to create a link to other payment methods in their applications.
The court order stems from a legal battle of several years against the epic games, which began after the developer of Fortnite challenged the Apple App Store business model. While the court has arranged on the side of Apple on most of the charges, he decided that the anti -stressing provisions of the company – which prevent developers from informing users of cheaper payment options outside the App Store – violate the California unfair competition law.
Apple answered the decision by saying that it would respect the injunction but would appeal the decision. The call was placed earlier this week. If the suspension is granted, Apple would be authorized to maintain its current policies of the App Store until the court decides on the fate of Apple’s appeal.
A certain number of high-level applications, including Kindle, Patreon and Spotify, have already adapted their applications to take advantage of the new rules of the App Store in the United States which allow a connection to the out-of-application payment methods.
More specifically, Apple wishes to delay two key mandates:
- A prohibition to invoice the commissions for purchases made via links to external payment methods.
- A prohibition to define the conditions of the style, placement or language of these links in iOS applications.
Apple maintains that these provisions go far beyond the original injunction 2021, which only made it bonds. The new restrictions, according to Apple, are “punitive”, create new legal obligations which are not previously pleaded and would cause irreparable damage by costing it “hundreds of millions to billions of dollars” per year. Apple also claims that the district court has violated the regular and wrongly prices procedure, which, according to him, violates the Californian law and the American Constitution.
Apple maintains that it is likely to be successful on appeal and that a stay is necessary to prevent damage to its platform and its commercial model. The company asks the ninth circuit to make a decision before May 28, 2025.
Epic Games published this response to the Apple emergency movement:
Apple’s motion of stay is a final effort to block competition and extract massive waste costs at the expense of consumers and developers.
Given that the court’s decision has been issued by the district court, Apple has faced an increase in authentic competition, because developers have updated their applications with better payment methods, better offers and a better choice of consumers – all benefiting from American consumers such as the 2021 injunction initially planned. We are at full speed to bring Fortnite to iPhones and iPads to the United States this week.
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