The European Union said it's reviewing Apple's decision to shut down the developer account of Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, asserting three different pieces of legislation may govern the matter.
The maker of the popular online battle game Fortnite yesterday said that Apple had shut down the account, apparently reversing a last month decision to approve the developer account.

Epic had planned to launch its own app store, the Epic Games Stores, on iOS in Europe as well as Fortnight on the Apple's platform. And it accused Apple of breaching the bloc's Digital Markets Act (DMA) by killing its developer account.
The European Commission has responded to this development of Apple killing the Epic Games' account across the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and Other European region, "We have requested further explanations on this from Apple under the DMA". As per TechCrunch.

The pan-EU regulation starts applying on Apple from midnight Brussels time today.

The EU is also considering whether Apple's actions raise compliance "doubts" with regard to two other regulations — the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the platform-to-business regulation (P2B) — in light of what they referred to as "the links between the developer program membership and the App Store as designated VLOP".

Rules the EU's DMA imposes on Apple, as designated "gatekeeper," and its App Store as a so-called core platform service oblige the company to allow third-party app stores. In case of non-compliance, DMA may expose the company to severe penalties up to 10% of global annual turnover or 20% in case of repeat offenses.

While a subset of rules in the DSA apply to Apple's App Store, too, as a designated VLOP, they have been in place on larger platforms since August 2023 — while the rest of the regulation's provisions took effect last month on platforms and many other digital services. Penalties for breaches of the DSA can reach up to 6% of global annual turnover.

On the other hand, the P2B regulation of the EU hosts measures that should make the platform more transparent and prevent unfair practices. It was in place for a longer time than both (since 2020).

The ban on unilateral or abrupt suspensions of accounts also survived under the P2B law, and platforms had to provide proper explanations for such terminations. However, unlike the DMA and the DSA regime for VLOPs, the compliance with P2B lies outside the Commission's jurisdiction. It has devolved to member state level authorities, which also determine any possible penalties for breaches. Whereas while it is possible that Commission enforcers might factor into their assessment of VLOPs' DSA compliance whether platforms play nice with P2B rules given there is some overlap in scope,.

Epic claims that Apple acted in retaliation against its criticism of the iPhone maker's DMA proposal, in which developers will have to sign up to new T&Cs that include a new "core technology" if they want to tap into DMA entitlements.

But yesterday, Apple was quick to deliver an aggressive retort, countering the charges by Epic, and cited a ruling in a U.S. court to justify canceling its account, too. And claimed no executive had approved its application to the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, having instead done so with a click-through agreement.

The "egregious breach" of Apple's contractual terms by Epic led courts to determine, in September 2021, when ruling in Apple's favor in Epic's litigation against Apple, that Apple had the right to terminate "any or all of Epic Games' wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games' control at any time and at Apple's sole discretion." Given Epic's past and ongoing behavior, Apple elected to exercise that right, Apple stated yesterday, citing the U.S. court ruling. A game maker sued Apple in the US, saying the company is abusing its market power by compelling developers to use its own payment systems.

A U.S. court ruled in September 2021 that Apple does not have a monopoly in digital mobile gaming transactions. However, it did decree that it must not prevent developers from adding links to their apps to refer the users to alternative payment systems outside the App Store for buying digital goods.

Then Apple itself celebrated the ruling as a victory-claming the court had ruled the App Store does not violate antitrust law. The U.S. court did not demand Apple be required to permit third-party app stores or to enable sideloading. Under the EU's DMA, however, it is obligated to permit third-party app stores and third-party software downloads and may not block business users from offering wares through their own channels.

The jurisdiction whose ruling Apple is apparently relying on to justify terminating the developer account of Epic, the American one, very likely won't apply in the EU. But by referring to that particular jurisdiction, Apple might be trying to apply pressure against yet another legal venue that has found it a problem with regard to its market power and has already passed laws regulating how it operates its App Store.

Apple was reached for a comment on its reaction to the Commission's request for further clarifications of its action under the DMA and over the questions the bloc is raising regarding its compliance with other measures applied to the App Store by the DSA and P2B. It said it had nothing additional to add to the remarks made yesterday — which argue the U.S. court ruling affirms its contractual right to terminate Epic's account.

In those comments, Apple explained that it wasn't ending Epic's account just in the EU. It stated that its DPLA are world agreements; asserted that Epic's violation of the DPLA agreement-with its "hotfix" patch designed to evade Apple's policies by secretly loading code that permitted users to buy in-game currency-was implemented worldwide, including in Europe; and argued the court order permitting termination is worldwide in effect.

The company also highlighted that Epic continues its litigations against it both in the U.S. and Australia.

Update: The European Union's internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, has also waded in on the row, writing on X: "Under the DMA, there is no room for threats by gatekeepers to silence developers. I have asked our services to look into Apple's termination of Epic's developer account as a matter of priority." He urged developers to get in touch with their feedback on gatekeepers' compliance.

Under the #DMA, there is no room for gatekeepers' threats to silence developers.

I have requested our services to give a priority to review Apple's termination of Epic's developer account.