During a trial, Epic claims that Google Play's "bribe and block" tactic damaged competitors

 During a trial, Epic claims that Google Play's "bribe and block" tactic damaged competitors

Gary Bornstein, the attorney for Epic, told the jury during opening arguments on Monday that Google rewards rivals, including those who want to build their own app stores and interact with customers directly.

Epic Games Inc. claimed as it started its legal fight with Alphabet Inc. that the internet giant employed a "bribe and block" approach to punish developers and raise costs for customers in order to hinder competition against its Google Play app store.  

In an antitrust lawsuit, Epic, the company behind the well-known video game Fortnite, aims to overturn Google Play regulations over the question of whether Google has monopolized the market for Android app distribution and payment. The lawsuit puts the store's billion-dollar income stream in jeopardy.

Gary Bornstein, the attorney for Epic, said the jury during the opening comments on Monday that Google prevents rivals from competing with its own marketplace as well as payment system by paying off rivals, including those who want to build their own app stores and deal directly with customers.

"Higher prices, poorer quality, thereby and less choice for everyone, and yet Google makes hundreds of millions of dollars in profits — more than what it would have earned in a competitive market," according to Bornstein, are the results of Google's anticompetitive actions. According to him, the Google Play store generated over $12 billion in operational profit with a nearly 71% profit margin in 2021. 

Additionally, Bornstein told jurors that although Google allows some physical goods retailers, such as Starbucks Corp., to choose their own payment gateways, app developers are forced to utilize Google Play's billing and payment system.

"Google Faces Off"

Google's lawyer, Glenn Pomerantz, retaliated, stating that "Google can not be a monopolist because Google competes" with competitor companies' app shops, such as Apple Inc. Pomerantz told the jury that Google had to battle to attract developers as well. Well-known applications like Clubhouse and Chat GPT were only available on the Apple App Store.

"The word bribe is quite strong," the lawyer said. These agreements are "part of Google's efforts to get the encouragement of app developers," not anything to do with bribery. 

According to Pomerantz, there are no exclusive restrictions or requirements relating to third-party shops in any of the developer agreements or incentive packages that Epic cited, including those issued to Activision Blizzard Inc. before to its acquisition by Microsoft Corp. and Riot Games, a division of Tencent Holdings Ltd. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, are likely to testify during the trial, which is set to go until early December.

On the first day of the trial, Epic CEO in Court Sweeney sat in the public sitting area wearing a gray suit. When Bornstein gestured to the chief executive and informed the jury that he had created Epic while still a college student, he got up and bowed to the jurors. Epic's 2020 lawsuit against Google marked the beginning of the Google Play antitrust dispute. In a countersuit, Alphabet said that the game developer had attempted to establish its own app store in 2020 as a workaround for the Google Play payment mechanism, which was a violation of contract and bad faith on the part of the developer.

After Alphabet, located in Mountain View, California, recently negotiated agreements with customers, state attorneys general, and Match Group Inc.—all of whom had filed complaints against Google Play—Epic is the only stakeholder that is still fighting the firm. In a similar battle with Apple over its app store two years ago, Epic was mostly defeated.

According to Epic's lawsuit, Activision explored developing its own app store, and in January 2020, Google agreed to pay the game publisher $360 million spread over three years. Activision disputes that Google presented them with this proposition.