Oliver Haslam on September 30, 2020, 8:10 pm

Apple And Epic Agree That They Don’t Need A Jury Trial Over Fortnite Spat

Apple and Epic Games have both agreed that they don’t want a jury trial in relation to their spat over Fortnite and in-app purchases.

That comes after the pair submitted a form to the Northern California Court yesterday saying as much.

Initially, it was suggested by the judge that a hearing in front of a jury would be the best route forward, but both Epic and Apple say they don’t want that.

Epic and Apple have met and conferred, and the parties agree that Epic’s claims and Apple’s counterclaims should be tried by the Court, and not by a jury. Therefore, with Epic’s consent, Apple hereby withdraws its demand for a jury trial pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 38(d). The parties respectfully request that the case (including any claims and counterclaims) proceed to a bench trial on a schedule determined by the Court.

This all follows a preliminary hearing on Monday that saw Epic’s lawyer get a bit of a battering, with the judge going so far as to say that the Fortnite publisher wasn’t being honest in its dealings with Apple, particularly how it handled the rolling out of an in-app purchase system outside of the App Store’s normal mechanisms.

Now, we wait. It’s unlikely that things will progress before July next year, although there has been some suggestion that Apple might allow Fortnite back onto the App Store and agree for in-app purchase revenue to be held in Escrow pending an outcome of the case.

(Via: MacRumors)