SAN FRANCISCO - Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, won a major US court battle against Google when a jury decided that the search engine giant wields illegal monopoly power through its Android app store.

Jurors found for Epic on all counts on Dec 11. The court in January will begin work on what remedies to implement.

“(Today’s verdict) proves that Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation,” Epic Games said in a statement on its website.

If the ruling holds, it could upend the entire app store economy, potentially giving developers more sway over how their apps are distributed and how they profit off them.

Epic sued Google and Apple in 2020, accusing the tech titans of abusing control of their respective shops selling apps and other digital content for mobile devices powered by iOS or Android software.

Lawyers for the two companies made their final arguments on Dec 11 after more than a month of trial in Epic’s lawsuit, which accused Google taking action to quash competitors and charging unduly high fees of up to 30 per cent to app developers.

Among its allegations were that Google illegally ties together its Play store and billing service, meaning developers were required to use both to have their apps included in the store.

The ruling marks a stunning defeat for Google, which operates alongside Apple one of the world’s biggest app stores.

Google said it would appeal against the decision, and the case could still drag on for months or years.

“We will continue to defend the Android business model and remain deeply committed to our users, partners, and the broader Android ecosystem,” Mr Wilson White, vice-president of government affairs and public policy at Google, said in an e-mailed statement.

The jury took just a few hours to decide against Google, finding that the company had embarked on various illegal strategies to maintain its app store monopoly on Android phones.

“The trial has shone a very bright light on what Google has done to impair the competition,” a lawyer for Epic, Mr Gary Bornstein, told jurors earlier in the day, and that Google “systematically blocks” alternative app stores on the company’s Play store.

Google has denied wrongdoing, arguing that it competes “intensely on price, quality, and security” against Apple’s App Store.

A lawyer for Google, Mr Jonathan Kravis, told jurors that “Google does not want to lose 60 million Android users to Apple every year”. Google lowered its fee structure to compete with Apple, he said.

“This is not the behaviour of a monopolist,” he said.

Google settled related claims from dating app maker Match before the trial started. The tech giant also settled related antitrust claims by US states and consumers under terms that have not been made public.

Epic lodged a similar antitrust case against Apple in 2020, but a US judge largely ruled in favour of Apple in September 2021.

Epic has asked the US Supreme Court to revive key claims in the Apple case, and Apple is fighting part of a ruling for Epic that would require changes to App Store rules. REUTERS, AFP