Google hopes to speed up the resolution of its antitrust legal battle with the maker of Fortnite, Epic Games, Match Group and state attorneys general. In a new filing, Google’s legal team is now asking the court to dismiss several of the plaintiffs’ arguments regarding the nature of its app store business, revenue-sharing agreements, and other app store-related projects. applications in a partial motion for summary judgment.
According to Google, it believes the court should now have enough information available to make decisions on a handful of the plaintiffs’ claims before the case goes to trial, saying these elements do not violate antitrust law. If the court agrees with Google’s position, the trial would still move forward, as other claims would still need to be argued in court.
Google specifically wants the court’s ruling on five key claims that would appear to be critical to the plaintiffs’ ability to prove anticompetitive behavior.
He wants the court to throw out the argument that Google’s Developer Distribution Agreement is illegal because it prohibits distribution from other app stores. Google responds to this by saying that it is not legally required to distribute to other app stores, noting that most Android devices come preloaded with more than one app store. In addition, it notes that consumers can install additional app stores from the web browser.
“Android is the only major mobile platform that enables multiple app stores,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “In fact, most Android devices come with two or more app stores pre-installed, and consumers can install others. Epic, Match Group, and state attorneys general ignore the openness and choice offered by Android and Google Play, and we look forward to taking our case in court.”
Another argument that he wants to dismiss focuses on “Project Hug”, a program administered by Google which was designed to incentivize Android game developers to keep their games on the Google Play Store. The plaintiffs argued that Google quietly paid game developers millions of dollars in incentives as part of this initiative, which later became known as the “Game and App Velocity Program.” Epic Games alleged that the program came about because Google was afraid other developers would follow suit after releasing Fortnite exclusively for Android outside of the Play Store via its own installer. Google was also reportedly concerned that Epic could enter into other exclusive pre-installation deals with OEMs like Samsung to reduce their revenue split.
The program itself was quite successful as Google was able to forge deals with various developers including Activision Blizzard to keep their games on the Play Store. earlier presentations had stated.
Google, however, argues that Project Hug was not an anti-competitive move, but has been mischaracterized by the plaintiffs. It says the program offered benefits to developers and early access to Google Play users when developers released new or updated content, but it didn’t stop developers from creating competing app stores.
The company is also rejecting claims about revenue-sharing agreements with wireless carriers, saying they are outside the statute of limitations. The agreements have expired more than four years ago, Google says, so they should be thrown out.
In addition, Google asserts that the AGs and the consumer class failed to show that Google harmed competition by selling app subscriptions and in-app purchases to consumers. For that reason, consumers should not be able to recover any of these alleged overcharges, Google says.
The final claim focuses on tying, or the allegation that in order to purchase one product, the buyer also had to purchase a different (or linked) product. The plaintiffs argued that Google Play and Google Play billing services are illegally linked, but Google says this is not true. Instead, it argues that Play’s billing services are not a separate product. He also points out that more than 90% of the apps on Google Play are free and the developers pay nothing when they are downloaded.
The new push for a partial summary judgment follows soon after last month’s ruling that Google’s failure to retain some of your messages for discovery requires penalties. The plaintiffs successfully demonstrated that Google employees tended to turn off chat history in internal discussions, in an effort to destroy confidential communications related to the case. the Department of Justice recently cited the same problem in its own antitrust investigation. Judge gave plaintiffs’ lawyers until April 21 to provide an amount in seeking legal fees as part of the penalties to begin with.
Google previously asked for the trial to be delayed and was denied.
Epic Games has been asked to comment and we will update if one is provided.