‘Fortnite’ to Return to App Store After Judge Rules Apple Violated Injunction Set by Epic Games’ Antitrust Lawsuit

“Fortnite” is set to return to the iOS App Store in the United States after a legal victory over Apple.

According to documents obtained and reviewed by TheWrap, a judge found that Apple violated a court order following the 2021 antitrust lawsuit filed against them by “Fortnite” developer Epic Games. Epic’s lawsuit argued Apple acted as a monopoly, taking as much as 30% of all App Store transactions. An injunction set by that lawsuit was “issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing,” according to Wednesday’s ruling, which found Apple in “willful violation” of that injunction.

“Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated,” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote.

Rogers continued: “This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately, Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.”

Adding to Apple’s legal demands, the court referred the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California for a probe to see whether criminal contempt proceedings should follow.

“Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction,” Rogers wrote. “It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the cover-up made it worse.”

Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney responded to the news on X Wednesday after news dropped and announced the game would be on the App Store next week.

“We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week,” he said. “Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic.”

Representatives for Apple did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

The post ‘Fortnite’ to Return to App Store After Judge Rules Apple Violated Injunction Set by Epic Games’ Antitrust Lawsuit appeared first on TheWrap.