Judge Gonzalez Rogers has rejected Apple’s motion for a stay of the court’s injunction in the Epic Games case. In September, Judge Rogers passed a ruling on the year-long Epic Games vs. Apple case which found Epic in breach of its contract and the Cupertino tech giant’s anti-steering policy to offer alternative payment methods anti-competitive.
Therefore, she ordered the Cupertino tech giant to allow developers to add in-app links to websites outside the App Store. The company was given 90 days to implement the App Store changes but in October, Apple filed an appeal requesting more time to wait for all pending appeals in the case to come to conclusion before making changes.
Judge gives Apple until December 9 to make the changes and the company plans to appeal to the Ninth circuit
At the hearing, Apple’s lawyers argued that they needed more time to implement the ordered changes to the App Store because of their technical and legal complexities. However, Judge Rogers was not convinced with the tech giant’s argument and found that the company was not asking for more time to comply but to stall the changes.
“Apple,though, did not request additional time to comply. It wants an open-ended stay with norequirement that it make any effort to comply. Time is not irreparable injury.
The Court can envision numerous avenues for Apple to comply with the injunction and yet take steps to protect users, to the extent that Apple genuinely believes that external links would create issues. The Court is not convinced, but nor is it here to micromanage. Consumers are quite used to linking from an app to a web browser. Other than, perhaps, needing time to establish Guidelines, Apple has provided no credible reason for the Court to believe that the injunction would cause the professed devastation. Links can be tested by App Review. Users can open browsers and retype links to the same effect; it is merely inconvenient, which then, only works to the advantage of Apple.”
She has given the company till December 9, 2021, to implement the changes. Unhappy with the outcome, the Cupertino tech giant told The Verge that it will appeal to the Ninth Circuit for a stay for its “believes no additional business changes should be required to take effect until all appeals, in this case, are resolved. We intend to ask the Ninth Circuit for a stay based on these circumstances.” Click here to read the complete court order.
Read More:
