After Epic Games' unexpected win, veteran antitrust US federal judge James Donato is now taking the story one step further by asking Google to calculate the costs incurred by allowing the Epic Games Store inside the Google Play Store, as well as providing catalog access and library porting rights. Google must reply by June 24th.
4 Reviews
Last December, Epic Games won a three-year legal fight against Google in a lawsuit that ended with a unanimous jury decision that the tech giant has an illegal monopoly in the Android app distribution market. Obviously, the main tool used to enforce this monopoly is the Google Play Store, but the jury also decided that there is an illegal connection between Google's app store and the Google Play billing payment services.
As the next steps are being decided, US federal judge James Donato labeled Google as "an illegal monopolist" and added that the company "will have to pay some penalties" to Epic Games. However, this could be taken one step further, and Google might be forced to allow the Epic Games Store in Google Play Store as an alternative app delivery service.
The judge wrote the following: "Google will file by June 24, 2024, a proffer stating in detail the tech work required and economic costs, if any, to provide “Catalog Access” and “Library Porting” to competing app stores for a period of up to 6 years." This means that Google might be forced to allow more than just the Epic Games Store into its ecosystem. A final hearing is scheduled for August 14th and, until then, Epic will have the chance to file a rebuttal, depending on the estimates that Google will file in July.