Judge not impressed with Apple's request for more time in Epic case
by Charles Martin · AppleInsidera magistrate judge has denied a last-minute request from Apple for a delay in producing about 1.3 million documents related to App Store changes it 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 said. "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."
In a status report to the court filed on September 26th, Apple asked for more time to produce the full amount of documents. The company told the court that it had discovered that complying with the search parameters ordered by the court had produced many more documents related to Apple's decision-making process.
Judge Thomas S. Hixson is holding Apple to the original deadline of Monday, September 30th, 2024. Original Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers originally ordered Apple to produce the relevant documents on May 31st. Judge Hixson called Apple's last-minute plea for more time "bad behavior."
"This gives rise to several related concerns," Hixson added. "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," Hixson said in reiterating his original deadline.
The never-ending battle
This is part of the long-running dispute between Epic and Apple that began when Epic deliberately bypassed the rules of the store at the time to offer a direct link to Epic for payment. Apple subsequently banned Epic from the App Store.
During the ongoing court battle, Apple responded to antitrust concerns from the European Union and has since changed its rules for the EU. It now allows third-party payment options in the EU version of the App Store if the developer of the app or service wishes to include that. Epic has already opened its own EU store.
Epic is continuing the case because it argues that Apple has not fully complied with Judge Rogers' ruling in the US and other countries. Judge Hixson, in rejecting Apple's request for more time, supposed that Apple has the capability of reviewing that many documents in the course of a weekend.
He inferred that Apple's feet-dragging over producing the volume of documents requested is because fulfilling the request is "all downside for Apple." In theory, the documents could show that Apple has deliberately not complied with all Judge Rogers' directives.
3 Comments
nubus 574 comments · 8 Years
About 3 hours ago
It seems Apple spent 6 months on delivering 8k files of an expected 650k documents. Now the total is expected to be 1.3m. Apple didn't try to do even the 650k on time and only asked for an extension after having spent 95% of the time on doing nothing. No wonder the judge is furious.
lowededwookie 1160 comments · 16 Years
About 2 hours ago
Or could it be that the legal system is so bad it needs things in writing which means Apple needs to print out 1.3 million documents?
Thats a tough ask for even the largest print house let alone a corporate office.
Even if they can be delivered by email, someone has to check each of those documents to ensure they are what is being requested. Algorithms are pretty poor at the moment.
danox 3267 comments · 11 Years
About 9 minutes ago
Sometimes when you are approached by a company that is known to be a sleazeball company sometimes it’s better to just say no, Walmart, Mizrahi Developments, Guess Jeans, and Trump enterprises, do not get caught up in their promises about how much money you’re gonna make just say no…… Epic is one such company. you do not want to get tangled up with these five companies they break companies doing business with them it isn’t worth it no matter what they promise at the front end of a possible business relationship.
https://www.blogto.com/real-estate-toronto/2024/02/the-one-yonge-bloor-mizrahi-toronto/ Mizrahi Developments has long history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_(company) Epic is Guess Jeans with more money, minus three brothers.
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