Epic Wins: Federal Jury Rules That Google Illegally Protected its Play Store Monopoly

A federal jury needed just four hours to hand Epic Games a stunning legal victory in its antitrust battle against Google.

“Victory over Google!” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney tweeted.  “After four weeks of detailed court testimony, the California jury found against the Google Play monopoly on all counts. The Court’s work on remedies will start in January. Thanks for everyone’s support and faith! Free Fortnite!”

In a unanimous vote, the nine jurors in Epic v. Google determined that the Google Play Store is a monopoly and that the online giant abuses its dominance to harm competitors, developers, and customers. Among other things, Google also secretly reached agreements with certain companies to relax its rules and fee structures, paid hardware makers to bundle its apps and services, and illegally tied its in-house billing system to the Play Store. The jury also found that Epic Games was materially injured by Google’s illegal business practices, opening up the possibility of damages in addition to the coming behavioral changes.

In January, U.S. district judge James Donato—who had practically begged Google to settle this case when it became clear how much evidence there was against the company—will issue a ruling detailing the changes Google must make. This should go Epic’s way, too: The judge previously seemed to agree with Epic that Google should allow third-party app stores on Android and be forced to let developers use their own billing systems.

Epic sued Apple and Google in 2020 after trying to bypass the forced use of their in-app billing systems in its hit game Fortnite. And while Epic lost on some charges in its Apple antitrust case, it won on one of the important points, that Apple should not be allowed to prevent developers from communicating with their own customers, including matters related to billing. Epic is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review that case, and the victory against Google could provide the ammunition it needs to curb Apple’s illegal behavior too.

“We plan to challenge the verdict,” a Google spokesperson said. “Android and Google Play provide more choice and openness than any other major mobile platform. We will continue to defend the Android business model and remain deeply committed to our users, partners, and the broader Android ecosystem.”