Court orders Tim Cook to sit for 7-hour deposition in epic case

Illustration from article titled Tim Cook Is Ordered By Court To Sit For 7 Hour Deposition In Epic Case

Photo: Drew angerer (fake pictures)

Some not-so-good legal news for Apple. For starters, a judge ruled that Apple CEO Tim Cook should appear for a seven-hour testimony in the upcoming lawsuit against Epic Games. Second, Apple’s attempt to bring Samsung into the case was also denied. Womp womp.

According to court documents, Epic Games wanted to drop Cook for the proposed eight hours. Apple then attempted to quote the apex doctrine, which in a nutshell prevents a high level corporate employee from being dismissed. Or, you know, zero hours. Apple later offered a four hour concession. However, according to Judge Thomas S. Hixon, “this dispute is less than it seems.” Hixon writes that the summit doctrine “limits the length of a deposition, rather than prohibiting it entirely”, and that, under the circumstances, the dispute is whether Cook should be deposed for “four hours, eight hours, or a duration between “. Hence Hixon’s decision that Cook should be dropped off for seven hours.

As to where Hixon got seven hours from, the judge writes that this is the default rule on “how long a witness must suffer when filed.” Hixon also argues that the summits doctrine focuses on whether a witness has “unique, non-repetitive knowledge of the facts of the case.” Regarding the policies of Apple’s App Store, which are at the center of this seemingly endless case against Epic, Hixon writes that “there really isn’t anyone like the CEO of Apple who can attest to the how Apple sees competition in these different markets. fundamental to its business model.

On the positive side of Cook, Judge Hixon said a “deposition longer than seven hours is not warranted.”

Another blow is that Judge Hixon rejected Apple’s request to subpoena internal documents to Samsung. Since Samsung isn’t even involved in the meat of Apple and Epic, Hixon called the request a “special and deep dive” into Samsung’s relationship with Epic. As to why Apple made the request in the first place, the company has claimed that these documents will prove that its App Store practices are pretty much the same as everyone else’s. Or put it simply, from Apple’s point of view, Epic Games can’t make a compelling antitrust argument if it can show that Samsung has made similar decisions in the way it distributes Epic products. Fortnite

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However, Hixon contends that because Epic Games is a fairly large company, any fix it has with Samsung is unique and cannot serve as a substitute for a wider category of market players ”.

It’s hard to say that these two issues are “wins” for Epic, as much as they are minor setbacks for Apple. Cook could be impeached for seven hours, but that doesn’t guarantee the court will side with Epic Games at the end of the day. However, Samsung’s refusal could bode well for Apple’s other subpoenas for other third parties, including Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Amazon.

In any case, these are just the latest developments in the tit-for-tat legal litany between Apple and Epic games since last summer. A suite of the courtroom, one might say, of the ridiculous show It started this whole saga in the first place. As a reminder, in August, Epic introduced direct in-app purchases in Fortnite which evaded Apple’s 30% commission for transactions made through the App Store. This led to Apple snatching Fortnite from the App Store. In turn, this led to a spicy video of Epic portraying Apple as a dystopian dictator. Which, again, led to Apple terminate the Epic Games App Store developer account

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The drama calmed down a bit, with the trial not starting until July. That said, it’s fair to assume that the next few months will see plenty of passive-aggressive legal ups and downs again, as Epic and Apple try to rack up benefits for their individual cases.

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