Epic Games has prevailed against Google in U.S. District Court, scoring a victory in the 2020 lawsuit filed against the search giant over antitrust behavior related to its Google Play store. Epic claims that Google leverages control over the Android mobile operating system to require content creators who want a presence on an estimated 71 percent of the world’s smartphones to sell through the Play Store. The verdict “proves Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation,” Epic wrote of the win. Google disagrees with the ruling and says it plans to appeal.

“Today’s verdict is a win for all app developers and consumers around the world,” Epic wrote in a Monday blog post.

The San Francisco jury deliberated for less than four hours before reaching a unanimous verdict, according to The Wall Street Journal, which says “the loss comes as Google battles more antitrust challenges, including a landmark trial focusing on its dominant search engine.”

That trial took place this fall, the result of an action brought by the Justice Department, but a ruling isn’t expected until early next year.

“Google was willing to pay billions of dollars to stifle alternative app stores by paying developers to abandon their own store efforts and direct distribution plans, and offering highly lucrative agreements with device manufacturers in exchange for excluding competing app stores,” Epic claims.

Epic Games, creator of the popular “Fortnite” video game franchise, says “more than 95 percent of apps are distributed through the Play Store on Android.”

At trial, Epic presented evidence showing that the Play Store brought roughly $12 billion in operating profit to Google in 2021, “with margins of more than 70 percent,” writes WSJ, noting that while that’s “a relatively small chunk of revenue at Google parent Alphabet, the marketplace anchors a package of services the company licenses to Android device manufacturers that play a key role in promoting its cash-cow search engine.”

Epic is not the first developer to take on Google. The company settled “with as many as 48,000 app developers but without making major changes to its business practices. It also settled with a group of consumers and attorneys general for all 50 U.S. states,” writes Wired, noting that “details of the latter settlement had not been published, pending the verdict in the Epic trial.”

Epic filed a similar suit against Apple over App Store practices and lost at trial in 2021, although “a federal judge in Oakland, California, ordered that Apple make just one change to its App Store practices,” Wired writes. “Apple still has not had to comply as it awaits the Supreme Court’s decision early next year about whether to review the case.”

Related:
Apple, Google Get Billions from Their App Stores. That’s Now Under Threat, The Wall Street Journal, 12/12/23
Google’s Antitrust Loss to Epic Could Preview Its Legal Fate in 2024, The New York Times, 12/12/23