Epic has won again. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will not overturn the unanimous jury verdict from 2023 that Google’s app store and payments system had become illegal monopolies. Today, that appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision in Epic v. Google, according to an full opinion you can read at the bottom of this story — and Google will now appeal to the Supreme Court, the company confirms to The Verge.
Judge M. Margaret McKeown begins her opinion for the court:
In the world of adrenaline-fueled survival that epitomizes the video game Fortnite, winners are decided in blazes of destruction and glory. By contrast, the outcome of this case—centered on Fortnite’s developer, Epic Games, and the Google Android platform—turns on longstanding principles of trial procedure, antitrust, and injunctive remedies.
Google will appeal: “This decision will significantly harm user safety, limit choice, and undermine the innovation that has always been central to the Android ecosystem. Our top priority remains protecting our users, developers and partners, and maintaining a secure platform as we continue our appeal,” writes Google global of regulatory affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland in a statement shared with The Verge.
But it appears that the Google Play Store may not be protected from the consequences of its monopoly while Google appeals to the Supreme Court — it might need to start cracking open Android for third-party stores the way that Judge James Donato ruled in his permanent injunction back in 2024. Last October, Donato pressed pause on all but one specific piece of his ruling while Google appealed, but today, Judge McKeown writes “The stay motion on appeal is denied as moot in light of our decision.” We’ve asked Epic and Google to clarify what they believe that means.
Epic does seem to think that Google can’t stop it as of today: “Thanks to the verdict, the Epic Games Store for Android will be coming to the Google Play Store!” Sweeney tweeted.
But the consequences of the full permanent injunction would stretch far beyond a single game: they would force Google to effectively open up its app store to competition for three whole years. Google would have to distribute rival app stores within the Google Play store, give rivals access to the full catalog of Google Play apps, and it would be banned from a variety of anticompetitive practices. You can read a summary of the details here.
Epic originally sued both Google and Apple in 2020 over the removal of its hit game Fortnite from both stores, though the case was more complicated than that. Epic intentionally used Fortnite as a wedge to challenge the app store monopolies, and in the case of Apple, it mostly lost.
The appeals court did recognize Epic’s gambit today, writing that “Google removed Fortnite from the Play Store after Epic embedded secret code into the app’s software” that bypassed Google’s payment systems. (Epic has never denied it.)
But Epic v. Google turned out to be a very different case, we saw when attending the trial in person and reading all the receipts. A jury saw secret revenue sharing deals between Google, smartphone makers, and game developers. The jury saw internal emails between Google execs that suggested Google was scared of how Epic might convince its fellow game developers to join or create rival app stores, creating unwanted competition for Google. Here are a few thoughts about why Epic won against Google, but not Apple.
Developing… we’re adding more to this story now, refresh in a few minutes for more.
