After the Epic Games vs Apple showdown wrapped up, the folks behind “Fortnite” are on the hook to cough up more than $73 million to cover Apple’s legal expenses.
So, after three years of legal drama, Epic Games and Apple’s tussle reached a quiet end on January 16, 2024, when the Supreme Court decided not to bother with appeals from both parties. But here’s the kicker: Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers settled it by ordering Epic Games to fork over a hefty $73,404,326 for Apple’s legal fees.
Get this: Apple initially throws around a whopping $82,971,401 for legal fees, but then, for who knows why, decides to tweak it down to $81,560,362. Now, the $73,404,326? That’s basically a 10% discount because Epic managed to snag a victory in one out of its ten counts.
But hold your horses, that $73 million isn’t the end of the story. The court’s “Notice of Motion” spills the beans that there’s gonna be a showdown on March 24, 2024, to hash out the fee. And guess what? They’re also throwing in “additional amounts” that Apple is racking up in the ongoing legal saga, all thanks to some fancy indemnification provision in the Developer Program License Agreement.
According to iMore, this whole indemnification thing is because Epic Games broke the rules in its deal with Apple by trying to sneak in its own payment system back in August 2020. At first, Epic Games made it seem like a knee-jerk response to Apple booting “Fortnite” from the App Store, but later spilled the beans that it was actually a well-thought-out scheme to push for other app stores on iOS. Sneaky, huh?