A judge overseeing a landmark competition case against Apple and Google has questioned whether Apple’s US lawyers wrongly used court submissions in Australia to put pressure on Epic Games in Europe and justify temporarily removing its developer account.
Google offered Fortnite creator Epic Games $200 million and proposed to acquire equity in the company to prevent it from opening its own app store with exclusive content that could compete with the search giant’s Play Store, a court has heard.
Google is nearing “monopoly levels” with its exploitation of the Android brand to prevent other app stores from competing with its Play Store, the maker of the Fortnite video game has said in a landmark competition trial.
Apple has made exceptional profits skimming a 30 per cent commission from sales on its app store, dubbed by the tech giant’s CEO an “economic miracle”, Epic Games has said on the first day of trial in a landmark competition case.
An Australian court will get a chance to weigh in on whether Apple and Google violated their dominant position in the app marketplace by requiring developers to use their payment systems or face a 30 per cent fee, when trial kicks off Monday in Fortnite game maker Epic Games’ case and two related class actions against the tech giants.
The competition regulator will not appeal a tribunal ruling that set aside its decision to block the $4.9 billion merger between ANZ and Suncorp, but promised it will continue to scrutinise the banking industry.
The ACCC’s rejection of a $4.9 billion merger between ANZ and Suncorp was hardly surprising given the concentrated nature of the home loans market, but the competition regulator faced an uphill battle in having the decision upheld, an expert says.
The ACCC’s decision to block a $4.9 billion merger between ANZ and Suncorp has been set aside, with a tribunal finding the transaction will not substantially lessen competition in the home loans market or for agribusiness and SME clients in Queensland.
Apple has failed to prevent a funder from accessing data that will allow it to estimate potential damages in a class action it’s bankrolling over allegedly anti-competitive app store restrictions.
Over three years into a class action against failed asset finance lender Axsesstoday and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers over a $50 million prospectus, the applicant has won the green light to add four insurers to the case.