Apple has won support from the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers’ advocacy group in a court fight over anti-competition claims with Apple’s App Store, Bloomberg reported Thursday (March 31).
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, founded by David and Charles Koch, is known for supporting libertarian conservative causes. The group submitted a filing Thursday, the deadline for groups to weigh in on Apple’s side in its lawsuit with Epic Games.
Apple was sued by Epic for removing Epic from its app store in the wake of Epic implementing its own in-app payment system, which went against Apple’s policies.
Apple “mostly won” its 2021 trial, per the report, but is now asking San Francisco’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn some of the judge’s September ruling that found that the Apple App Store’s business model was in violation of California’s unfair competition law.
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation said the judge’s argument was faulty and emphasized that antitrust laws were supposed to protect competition rather than competitors.
Apple and other Big Tech companies have been magnets for lawsuits in recent years, with Apple facing several fines from the Dutch antitrust watchdog, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM).
See also: Apple Now Faces $55M in Fines From Dutch Regulators Over Dating App Payments
The ACM initially fined Apple €5 million ($5.7 million) over access to non-Apple payments for dating app subscriptions, but that fine has now reached its maximum of €50 million ($55 million).
The fines were issued for 10 weeks straight, with the ACM arguing that Apple has been abusing its dominance by not allowing software applications in the Netherlands to make use of any other payment modes. Apple originally had a deadline of Jan. 15 to make the changes, but did not do so.
While Apple submitted a new proposal on March 27 saying that it would comply with the order, that came in too late to be considered ahead of the last weekly ACM fine.
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