Court Reviews Google and Epic’s App Store Antitrust Deal
Judge James Donato has reportedly questioned whether Alphabet’s Google and Epic Games reached too-good-to-be-true settlement for their antitrust lawsuit.
While in court on Monday, Judge Donato called the settlement between Epic Games and Google a “sweetheart deal” that benefits Google Epic Games deal but no one else.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said during the hearing that his company will pay Google, so the deal is not unfair in that regard. Epic agreed to pay Google $800 million over six years in exchange for access to Google’s services and reciprocal marketing arrangements for Android and Fortnite. The two struck a settlement last week to dissolve an injunction ordered after a jury verdict found Google liable for monopolizing its app store by paying game makers and others to only sell on Google in April 2023.
“Judge Donato has said throughout that he was surprised by the Google Epic antitrust case because it doesn’t require Google to give Epic access to its app catalog, something Epic said before trial was necessary to allow competition,” Reuters reported.
Judge Donato seemed skeptical over Epic’s arguments as to why the settlement was good for consumers. “This feels like it’s driven by Epic’s self-interest,” he said during the hearing.
Sweeney testified on Monday that Epic is paying Google “off” in the settlement agreement. “This is actually a significant transfer of value from Epic to Google.”
The judge emphasized that while the lawsuit is a private matter between Epic and Google, this is an antitrust case and therefore there are public interests at stake when it comes to the welfare of consumers.
