Apple Granted Stay On Appeal With Epic

Remember when Apple and Epic ended their legal battles, at least for a bit? It was a nice time, I didn’t have to think about Fortnite for a whole 10-minutes. Anyway, the appeals courts, which judge Rogers predicted would be the next step for the two tech giants, finally got their say on the proceedings, kind of. They have allowed Apple to postpone allowing the addition of third-party links for consumers to bypass their store charges. Ok, both did attempt to appeal judge Rogers’ decision back in September, but Apple’s placement of stay was granted most recently, i.e yesterday.

Basically, what happened yesterday was that a two-page document was released by the US ninth circuit appeals court stating that not all rulings were entirely clear according to the law, as two separate issues were being contested. The ruling on Wednesday was not an overturn of the district court’s decision back in September, but did grant Apple a Stay period, allowing them to continue the practice which the court has already deemed illegal. The Stay period is only granted for the purpose of the appeal’s court to fully dive into the hellscape that is the Epic Vs Apple case.

The muddy waters of which the ninth circuit appeals court will have to deal with is the point raised in this document: “Apple has demonstrated, at minimum, that its appeal raises serious questions on the merits of the district court’s determination that Epic Games, Inc. failed to show Apple’s conduct violated any antitrust laws but did show that the same conduct violated California’s Unfair Competition Law.” Why was any of this important? Judge Rogers’ ruling back in September stated that Apple had to comply with her ruling that Apple’s iOS devices would have to allow third-party buttons or external links for direct payment processing by December 9th.