Epic Games Victory Challenges Google Play Model

The jury's decision in favor of Epic Games challenges the prevailing model of the Google Play app store, which mandates payments through its system, imposing fees of up to 30% on sales, reports PaymentsDive.

In its lawsuit against tech giant Google, Fortnite creator Epic Games secured a victory on all counts, undermining a key aspect of the Android ecosystem's business model, as reported by various news outlets. The jury, siding with Epic on Monday, endorsed the company's argument that Google operated as a monopoly. Among its grievances, Epic contended that Google compelled developers to utilize its billing system in return for featuring their apps on its Play store, a major global app marketplace.

Epic celebrated the verdict as a victory for app developers and consumers, asserting that Google's app store practices were unlawful, exploiting its monopoly position to levy excessive fees, impede competition, and hinder innovation. During the antitrust case, U.S. District Judge James Donato highlighted Google's alleged intentional destruction of employee chat messages as a crucial factor. In instructing the jury to deliberate, he cautioned against giving Google the benefit of the doubt regarding the deleted information, assuming it wouldn't have favored the company.

Epic's objective in the case is not monetary damages but rather a transformation in Google's practices, aiming to allow developers to list their apps without being obligated to use Google's billing system and relinquish up to 30% of their sales to the company.

Google has announced its intention to appeal, emphasizing that Android and Google Play offer greater choice and openness than other major mobile platforms, expressing commitment to users, partners, and the broader Android ecosystem.

This legal battle is part of Google's broader confrontation with antitrust cases, with similar allegations of deliberate evidence destruction surfacing in other legal proceedings. The Department of Justice accused Google of systematically destroying sensitive communications in a 2020 complaint related to its ad-market dominance. In response to the accusations, Google argued that the deleted messages were not substantive and defended its document preservation practices. The issue of evidence spoliation is expected to resurface in another DOJ suit against Google, this time related to its partnership arrangements in maintaining online search dominance.

In the Epic case, the gaming company called attention to Google's messaging practices and sought sanctions. Google maintained that the deleted messages lacked significance, expressing confidence in prevailing in the legal dispute. Epic, anticipating uncertainty about the contents of the deleted chat logs, urged the judge to instruct the jury to assume the messages were unfavorable to Google, a directive the judge followed in his instructions to the jury.