US appeals court declines Google bid to further pause Play store overhaul in Epic Games case

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By Mike Scarcella

(Reuters) – Alphabet’s Google on Friday failed to persuade a U.S. appeals court to further freeze an order forcing it to make sweeping reforms to its app store Play while it challenges the decision in a lawsuit by “Fortnite” video game maker Epic Games.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Google’s request to continue its pause of the order, which requires the technology company to restore competition by allowing users to download rival app stores within its Play store and by making Play’s app catalog available to those competitors, among other reforms.

The appeals court said Google failed to meet the high bar to keep the order on hold. Google still has up to 10 months to comply with some key provisions of the underlying injunction and 30 days for others.

The appeals court said in a separate order the full court would not revisit Google’s appeal. Google could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Google in a statement said it was disappointed by the ruling and was weighing options to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Google said the underlying injunction would harm the security and privacy of consumers.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, in a post on the social media platform X, praised the court’s order and said developers and consumers would soon benefit from it.

Epic in its 2020 lawsuit accused Google of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and pay for transactions within apps. The Cary, North Carolina-based company convinced a San Francisco jury in 2023 that Google illegally stifled competition.

U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco issued his order in the case last year requiring Google to overhaul the Play store. Google has denied any wrongdoing.

Donato’s injunction said that for three years, Google cannot prohibit the use of in-app payment methods and must allow users to download competing third-party Android app platforms or stores.

The order also restricts Google from making payments to device makers to preinstall its app store and from sharing revenue generated from the Play store with other app distributors.

In upholding the injunction, a 9th Circuit panel in July said the record in Epic’s lawsuit was “replete with evidence that Google’s anticompetitive conduct entrenched its dominance.”

Google told the appeals court in a filing on August 8 that Donato’s injunction was “unprecedented” and would put Google and rival Apple on uneven playing fields.

Epic mostly lost a similar lawsuit it filed against Apple in 2020, accusing it of monopolizing app distribution and payments.

Google said if the jury verdict and Donato’s order are left in place, Google and Apple will “operate under different legal rules from two conflicting decisions of this court.”

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Richard Chang)