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Google has filed a motion opposing the antitrust complaint originally filed by Epic Games. As reported by Foss Patents, Google has responded to the complaint made by Epic Games with a motion of its own.
Epic Games first launched this legal battle back in August after a disagreement. This resulted in Fortnite being removed from both the Play Store and the App Store. However, Microsoft has come out in favour of Epic Games, supporting the company in its fight.
As reported by Android Central, Google plans to get Epic Games’ motion dismissed with this legal move. This legal battle could have wide-ranging impacts on the way companies interact with major app stores.
Google moves to dismiss Epic Games antitrust complaint
Google’s filing was made on its behalf by Morgan Lewis’ Brian Rocca. He confirms that the company will challenge the complaint “based on circumstances unique to Android”.
There are a few key takeaways from this motion filed by Google. The first is that the company is happy to combine any Andriod/Play Store antitrust cases. This refers to the Pure Sweat Basketball case, but also another case, Carr v. Google.
However, Google does not want this case to combine with any iOS cases. They argue this on the basis that the cases are at different stages of proceedings. This would allow Google to operate on its own schedule and not have to be rushed into proceedings.
The other reason for not combining with Apple’s cases it that they argue there is little overlap between them. They argue that the business models and contract agreements are so different that combining the cases would make little sense.
The advantages in Apple’s cases proceeding first are fairly obvious from Google’s perspective. If Apple were to win their case the Google could argue in the same way, however, if Apple lost then Google would then accentuate the differences between the two companies in their legal arguments.
This appears to be quite a shrewd move from Google should they be successful. If they avoid consolidation with Apple then they will buy themselves more time to deal with the case.
They will also have the advantage of seeing how the former’s case plays out, thus, tailoring their defence accordingly. It is difficult to know whether Google will be successful in this motion. However, we will keep our ears to the ground for any more news on this topic as it emerges.