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A U.S. judge on Monday asked Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to resolve its ongoing issues with Epic Games, the owner of the popular online multiplayer shooting game Fortnite, by May 27 or appear in court.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, sent an order to Apple after the company refused to restore the game in its App Store in the U.S.
“Apple is fully capable of resolving this issue without further briefing or a hearing,” the judge said in her order and warned that she would intervene if the company doesn’t come to terms with Epic.
In April this year, Gonzalez Rogers ruled that the tech giant violated her 2021 court order by not allowing third-party payments on the App Store. The company is challenging her decision and has asked an appeals court to hold the ruling.
“This ruling overturns Apple’s efforts to levy a new 27% commission on transactions processed externally, marking a significant legal setback. If developers broadly adopt external payments, Apple could face substantial erosion of its multi-billion-dollar U.S.-based App Store revenue stream,” Seeking Alpha analyst Oliver Rodzianko said in his May 15 analysis.
On Friday, Fortnite was blocked by Apple on iOS devices globally following Epic’s submission for the latest update.
But the company asked Epic to exclude the update for the U.S. and make a resubmission while also clarifying that it did not take action to remove the game in the EU.
In 2020, Fortnite was taken down from marketplaces on iOS and Android for a guideline violation after Epic introduced a payment feature to bypass the 30% commission imposed by the companies.
But after a four-year hiatus, the game was made available on iOS in the EU and on Android devices globally after Epic launched its games store. Epic said it would charge a store fee of 12% for payments processed and 0% on third-party payments.