(Reuters) – The UK antitrust court ruled Monday that Epic Games, the creator of the popular game Fortnite, will not be allowed to continue its case against Apple Inc. in the UK for its App Store payment system and control of application downloads.
The two companies have been in disgrace since August, when the game maker tried to avoid Apple’s 30% fee in the App Store by launching its own in-app payment system, which which led to Apple’s subsequent ban on Fortnite from its store.
The British court said Epic’s lawsuit against Alphabet Inc.’s Google could move forward, but considered the United States would be a better forum for its case against Apple.
“Epic will reconsider continuing its case against Apple in the UK following the resolution of the US case,” the video game company said in a statement in response to the court ruling.
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
In October, a California federal judge ruled in a request for a ban that Apple could ban the Fortnite game from its App Store, but it should not harm the Epic developer tools business, which includes “Unreal Engine” software used by hundreds of other video games.
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney had previously said that Apple’s control over its platform had tipped the playing field.
Reports of Chavi Mehta, Ayanti Bera and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Edited by Krishna Chandra Eluri