Australia’s Federal Court has weighed in on the drama between Apple and Fortnight

The top court has determined that Fortnite can sue Apple in Australia for illegally wielding control over its iPhones and iPads.

Epic Games originally sued Apple in November 2020, alleging Apple’s tight control of its App Store amounted to breaches of Australian Consumer Law and the Competition and Consumer Act.

Epic Games claimed that this was all because Apple illegally “forces Epic (and other app developers) to only use Apple’s App Store to distribute its software applications and to only use Apple’s payment platform for purchases of their in-app content by iOS device users”.

Epic takes on Apple in the US

Because the games company had also sued Apple in the United States for much the same thing, Apple successfully argued in April that the Federal Court lawsuit in Australia should be stopped, in favour of the presented in the United States.

Epic appealed that ruling, arguing the public policy issues surrounding Apple’s App Store were more important than jurisdictional issues. On Friday the Full Federal Court, which heard the appeal, found in Epic’s favour.

As part of its long-running enquiry into the power of major tech organisations, the ACCC is investigating whether Apple and Google are abusing the stranglehold they have over the distribution of apps, at the expense of competition.