Apple wins a stay in the Epic Games case; won’t have to make the App Store changes right away

Apple has won a stay on the Epic Games case that will pause the enforcement of the injunction issued by the lower court. This injunction required Apple to make App Store changes by December 9. After the stay on order, Apple can continue to require developers to use its in-app purchases without providing them with an alternative. Notably, the stay does not reverse the earlier order but puts a pause to its enforcement until the appeals court can fully hear the case. This process could take up months.

According to the appeals court, “Apple has demonstrated, at minimum, that its appeal raises serious questions on the merits of the district court’s determination that Epic Games, Inc. failed to show Apple’s conduct violated any antitrust laws but did show that the same conduct violated California’s Unfair Competition Law. […] Therefore, we grant Apple’s motion to stay part (i) of paragraph (1) of the permanent injunction. The stay will remain in effect until the mandate issues in this appeal.”

As per a statement by Apple spokesperson Marni Goldberg, “Our concern is that these changes would have created new privacy and security risks, and disrupted the user experience customers love about the App Store. We want to thank the court for granting this stay while the appeals process continues.”

Originally, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers ordered that Apple would be prohibited from restricting develops from including  “in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms” so that there can be an alternate payment option that does not require Apple to use in-app purchase system. This case was filed by Fortnite developer Epics Games.

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The court had also ordered Apple to allow “communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.” Notably, the stay does not imply to this part of the order.

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