European Commission Investigating Apple for Deleting Epic Games’ Developer Account: Potential Violations of Three Regulations

The European Commission will investigate Apple after the company deleted Epic Games’ developer account. Apple may be violating three different regulations.

Epic Games planned to release its own app store on iOS in Europe, the Epic Games Store. The game developer also wanted to bring Fortnite back to iOS. But deleting the game developer’s developer account once again thwarts those plans. CEO Tim Sweeney accused Apple is also guilty of violating the DMA.

A spokesperson for the European Commission says: TechCrunch that she has asked Apple for further explanation, in view of the DMA. According to that law, Apple must allow app stores from third parties, including those from Epic Games. If Apple does not comply with these rules, the company risks a fine of up to ten percent of its annual worldwide turnover.

In addition, the EU is investigating whether Apple’s actions cast doubt on compliance with two other regulations: the Digital Services Act and the Platform-to-Business Regulation. According to these regulations, platforms are not allowed to suddenly and unexpectedly close accounts and they must provide a clear explanation of why an account is being closed. However, the European Commission cannot enforce the Platform-to-Business Regulation; that must be done by the authorities of the Member States themselves.

Epic Games only just got its developer account back. After a dispute between the two companies in 2020, the account was also blocked because Epic Games introduced its own payment system in Fortnite on iOS, which Apple said violated the rules. In February, the game developer got his account back, only to lose it again a few weeks later. Apple believes that Epic Games cannot be trusted and cites the 2020 dispute as an example. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has also strongly criticized Apple’s new App Store policy, which was introduced to comply with the Digital Markets Act.

2024-03-07 13:13:11
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