Epic Games and Match Group want to add more allegations against Google in their lawsuits against Google. This is a Motion filed FridayTwo companies filed a lawsuit against Google in federal court, Northern District of California. They claimed that Google paid developers the money to create Android app stores.
Epic and Match are specifically linked to Project Hug agreements. The initiative, later called the “Apps and Games Velocity Program,” saw Google spend millions of dollars to keep some of Android’s most popular developers on the Play Store, according to a ComplaintEpic filed the following year.
“Some of these agreements were intended to, and did, stop developers from launching competing app stores,” the motion states, adding Google committed a “Per se” violation of the Sherman Act, the primary US antitrust law. Under the Sherman Act, per se violations don’t require a plaintiff to show how a certain behavior negatively affected the market since it’s generally accepted such actions reduce competition (price fixing, for instance, falls under that category).
Google stated to Engadget that they would oppose the motion. “Epic and Match are adding more inaccurate claims to their failing lawsuits and we’re looking forward to setting the record straight in court,” a company spokesperson said.
“The program on which Epic and Match base their claims simply provides incentives for developers to give benefits and early access to Google Play users when they release new or updated content; it does not prevent developers from creating competing app stores, as they allege,” they added. “In fact, the program is proof that Google Play competes fairly with numerous rivals for developers, who have a number of choices for operating systems and app stores.”
After both, the motion follows. Epic MatchGoogle reached temporary agreements earlier this year with the developers to keep their apps available on the Play Store while their litigation is resolved. This is a Contrasuit Google filed in June, the company accused Match of attempting to pay “nothing at all” for access to the Play Store. Google’s store fees have also drawn scrutiny from the Department of JusticeAn ensemble of more than three dozen states.
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