Epic Games vs Apple is currently one of the biggest ongoing legal tech battles in the world. Epic’s lawyers have now opened their questioning of Apple’s App Store chief Matt Fischer. During the questioning, they have brought up a five-year-old email quoting Fischer’s colleague stating, “Matt feels extremely strong about not featuring our competitors on the App Store.” However, the quote was not presented in its full context due to which Fischer dismissed it by stating that it was a misrepresentation. After which, the judge excoriated Epic for blindsiding her about a cache of evidence exhibits that the company released publicly.
Fischer has become the first Apple employee to take the stand during the ongoing legal onslaught. After him, Trystan Kosmynka, a senior director at Apple in charge of the app review process is going to take the stand trying to prove the App Store is not a monopoly.
The statement made by Fischer’s colleague in a 2016 email had the subject: “Competitor Apps in VoiceOver Collection.” According to Apple lawyers, the email was about featuring Google and Amazon in Apple’s App Store page for accessible apps.
According to the company’s statement, the full sentence from which Epic pulled the quote was “Although they may be our best and brightest apps, Matt feels extremely strong about not featuring our competitors on the App Store, so Tanya asked us to apply the same filters for this collection.”
Fischer in his reply to the courtroom stated that his colleague was misinformed. He further added that the company does promote apps that are its direct competitors, giving an example of Disney Plus and Hulu both of which the company does promote even after having its own Apple TV+ service.
Apart from this, District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also pulled up Epic for sharing documents online for public viewing without giving her an explanation. She stated, “All these things are being published, they’re out there. Non-lawyers don’t understand the difference between something being admitted for the truth versus being admitted for some other purpose like notice so I want to nail that down.”
