© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Fortnite game installing on Android operating system is seen in this illustration taken, May 2, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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By Mike Scarcella and Greg Bensinger
(Reuters) -“Fortnite” maker Epic Games has prevailed in an antitrust trial over Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google Play app marketplace, Epic Chief Executive Tim Sweeney said late on Monday, hours after the federal jury took up the case.
“Victory over Google! After 4 weeks of detailed court testimony, the California jury found against the Google Play monopoly on all counts. The Court’s work on remedies will start in January,” Sweeney wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Spokespeople for Google and Epic did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lawyers for the two companies made their final arguments earlier in the day, after more than a month of trial in Epic’s lawsuit, which accuses Google of unlawfully scheming to make its Play store dominant over rival app stores.
The lawsuit, filed in 2020, also challenges the fee of up to 30% that Google imposes on developers for in-app sales.
“The trial has shone a very bright light on what Google has done to impair the competition,” a lawyer for Epic, Gary Bornstein, told jurors earlier in the day.
Google “systematically blocks” alternative app stores on the company’s Play store, Bornstein said. Cary, North Carolina-based Epic owns the popular Fortnite multiplayer shooter game.
Google has denied wrongdoing, arguing that it competes “intensely on price, quality, and security” against Apple (NASDAQ:)’s App Store.
A lawyer for Google, Jonathan Kravis, told jurors that “Google does not want to lose 60 million Android users to Apple every year.” Google lowered its fee structure to compete with Apple, Kravis said.
“This is not the behavior of a monopolist,” he said.
Google settled related claims from dating app maker Match before the trial started. The tech giant also settled related antitrust claims by U.S. states and consumers under terms that have not been made public.
Epic lodged a similar antitrust case against Apple in 2020, but a U.S. judge largely ruled in favor of Apple in September 2021.
Epic has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive key claims in the Apple case, and Apple is fighting part of a ruling for Epic that would require changes to App Store rules.
