Apple is racing against the clock to submit over a million documents related to recent App Store changes, as a deadline set by the court looms large on Monday, September 30.
The company’s bid to extend the deadline was shot down on Friday by Judge Thomas S. Hixson, who labeled the request as “bad behavior.” Hixson underscored that it’s Apple’s responsibility to meet the deadline, leaving no room for excuses.
This development is just the latest episode in the heated legal battle between Apple and Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite. Epic has been fiercely contesting Apple’s App Store policies. Although Apple clinched a significant win in U.S. district court, the judgment required the tech giant to relax its App Store regulations, allowing developers more leeway to collect payments and subscription fees independently of Apple’s in-app payment system.
In response, Apple introduced changes to the App Store policies in January. Despite this, the company continued to take a smaller cut from those payments, prompting Epic to accuse Apple of “bad-faith” compliance.
In August, a judge ordered Apple to produce all relevant documents detailing how it formulated the new App Store rules. However, on Thursday, Apple contended that Epic’s search criteria had unearthed more than double the anticipated number of documents, skyrocketing to “north of 1.3 million documents,” and requested an additional two weeks to scrutinize the findings.
Judge Hixson, overseeing the document discovery phase, not only rebuffed Apple’s plea for more time but also criticized the company for announcing just four days before the deadline that it wouldn’t be able to meet it due to the overwhelming volume of documents. He indicated that this last-minute revelation didn’t convey a sense of responsible conduct on Apple’s part.
Moreover, Hixson suggested that with Apple’s vast resources, it had ample opportunity and capability to gather and vet the necessary documents promptly. He even intimated that, given its “nearly infinite resources,” Apple could feasibly review such a large volume of documents over a single weekend.
As the clock ticks down, all eyes are on Apple to see how it maneuvers through this legal minefield and meets the impending deadline.
