A magistrate judge has rejected Apple's last-minute request for an extension in producing approximately 1.3 million documents related to App Store changes made in January.
"Before yesterday's report, Apple never previewed to Epic Games or to the Court that the number of documents it would need to review exceeded its prior estimate by a substantial amount," Judge Hixson stated. "This information would have been apparent to Apple weeks ago. It is simply not believable that Apple learned of this information only in the two weeks following the last status report."
On September 26th, Apple filed a status report requesting additional time to provide all the necessary documents, citing that the number of documents produced under the court's search parameters was much larger than initially anticipated.
Judge Thomas S. Hixson upheld the original deadline of Monday, September 30th, 2024, which was first established by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on May 31st. Hixson criticized Apple's request for an extension, calling it "bad behavior."
"This gives rise to several related concerns," Hixson said. "First, Apple's status reports weren't any good... it's up to Apple to figure out how to meet that deadline, but Monday is indeed the deadline," he reiterated.
The Ongoing Battle
This dispute is part of the long-standing feud between Epic Games and Apple that began when Epic bypassed App Store rules to offer direct payment options, leading to Apple's decision to ban Epic from the store.
Throughout the court proceedings, Apple has responded to antitrust scrutiny from the European Union, leading to changes that allow third-party payment options in the EU version of the App Store if developers choose to include them. Epic has since opened its own EU store.
Epic continues its legal battle, arguing that Apple has not fully complied with Judge Rogers' ruling in the United States and elsewhere. In rejecting Apple's delay request, Judge Hixson implied that Apple is capable of reviewing the documents over the weekend, suggesting that the company may be dragging its feet because complying with the order is "all downside for Apple." The documents, in theory, could potentially reveal that Apple has deliberately failed to meet Judge Rogers' directives.
