It has been a long while since Epic Games and Apple have been under the legal battle for removing Fortnite from the App Store on the usage of the payment system by Epic Games. Although there has been no such relief for Epic Games in this matter, they have now decided to take it a step above. The Fortnite creator Epic Games has taken its fight against Apple Inc. to European Union antitrust regulators, ramping up its dispute with the iPhone maker over its App Store payment system and control over app downloads.
The company has been in a legal dispute since last August and Apple has blamed Epic Games for trying to avoid Apple’s 30% fee on the in-app purchase. To this, Tim Sweeney, the Chief Executive Officer of Epic Games replied, “The 30% they charge as their app tax, they can make it 50% or 90% or 100%. Under their theory of how these markets are structured, they have every right to do that, Epic is not asking any court or regulator to change this 30% to some other number, only to restore competition on IOS,” he said, referring to Apple’s mobile operating system.
Now the European Commission, which is already investigating Apple’s mobile payment system Apple Pay, has confirmed the acknowledgment of a new complaint by Epic Games and has confirmed that they will access it based on the standard procedures. Epic Games has also made a complaint to the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and to the Australian watchdog on the same matter and many other companies have openly supported Epic Games in this matter.