“Epic’s lawsuit is nothing more than a disagreement over the amount of money is earned. Although Epic pretends to be a kind of Robin Hood, in fact, it is a multi-billion dollar corporation that simply does not want to pay anything for the huge help it receives from the App Store platform, ”Apple said in its lawsuit.

The controversy between Apple and Epic Games flared on August 13 when Epic Games released another update to its Fortnite game on the App Store. It brought users the ability to purchase in-game content directly from Epic Games, bypassing Apple’s payment system, which adds an additional 30% commission to the final product price. Apple quickly reacted to the violation of its platform’s rules and removed Fortnite from the App Store, and also demanded that Epic remove the ability to buy in-game items bypassing its payment system. Epic Games refused and filed a lawsuit against Apple on the same day.

The further development of the conflict led to the fact that on August 28, Apple also removed the Epic Games developer account from its platform. As a result, Epic Games lost the ability to both create new apps for the App Store and release updates to Fortnite.

And now Apple wants to sue Epic Games to pay a fine for a breach of contract and is demanding reimbursement of all funds that passed through its payment system in Fortnite, as well as to obtain a ban on the use of external payment mechanism for in-app purchases in all applications, including Fornite.

The company in the lawsuit indicates that Epic’s actions seemed to be a real blow on the sly, especially against the background of the fact that “back in April of this year, Epic executives thanked Apple for supporting and promoting Fortnite-related events. “

“Without notifying Apple about this, Epic Games has begun recruiting a legion of lawyers, publicists, and technical experts to launch surprise attacks on the App Store. In the early morning of August 13, 2020, when Epic activated its hidden commission stealing feature, Sweeney (Tim Sweeney, head of Epic Games – ed.) Sent Apple an email stating that Epic would no longer abide by Apple’s rules. related to the processing of in-game payments, ”explains Apple in its lawsuit.

The document also states that Epic Games has earned over $ 600 million from the App Store platform.

Epic Games previously stated that Apple’s policies and actions are suppressing competition in the free market, and therefore asked Themis to place a temporary injunction against the Cupertino-based company. In addition, she asked to oblige Apple to return Fortnite back to the App Store and restore the Epic Games developer account on the platform. According to the latest data, the court hearing is scheduled for the end of September this year. However, the official date may still change.