(Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. won the support of the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers’ advocacy group in a court fight over claims the iPhone maker’s App Store is anti-competitive.
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, founded by David and Charles Koch and known for supporting libertarian conservative causes, was the first to submit a filing on Thursday’s deadline for groups to weigh in on Apple’s side in its battle with Epic Games Inc., the maker of Fortnite.
Apple mostly won its 2021 trial with Epic, but the iPhone maker is asking the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a portion of a judge’s September ruling finding that the App Store’s business model violates California’s unfair competition law.
The non-profit foundation argues the judge’s legal analysis was faulty, emphasizing that antitrust laws are meant to protect competition, “not competitors.”
Epic brought the case because it “is a would-be and self-avowed competitor of Apple in the distribution of apps,” the group said in its filing.
On Epic’s side of the battle, a bipartisan group of attorneys general from 35 states argued in a January filing that the trial judge was wrong to conclude Apple’s dominance of the market for mobile apps doesn’t violate U.S. antitrust law.
Read More: Epic’s Challenge to Apple App Store Draws Support From 35 States
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