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

Some not-so-good legal news for Apple. For starters, a judge ruled that Apple CEO Tim Cook should sit for a seven-hour deposition 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 eight hours. Apple then attempted to quote the apex doctrine, which in short prevents a high level employee of the company from being fired. Or, you know, zero hours. Apple later offered a four hour concession. According to Judge Thomas S. Hixon, however, “this dispute is less than what we see.” Hixon writes that the summit doctrine “limits the length of a deposition, rather than prohibiting it altogether,” and that given the circumstances, the dispute is whether Cook should be deposed for “four hours, eight hours, or a period of time in 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 for “how long a witness must suffer from being filed.” Hixon also argues that summit doctrine focuses on whether a witness has “unique, non-repetitive knowledge of the facts of the case.” Regarding the policies of the Apple App Store – which are at the center of this seemingly endless affair against Epic – Hixon writes: “There really isn’t anyone like the CEO of Apple who can attest to the way which Apple sees competition in these different markets that are essential. to its business model. ”

On the bright side of Cook, Judge Hixon said “a testimony longer than seven hours is unwarranted.”

Another blow is that Judge Hixon rejected Apple’s request to subpoena internal documents to Samsung. Given that Samsung isn’t even involved in the beef of Apple and Epic, Hixon called the request a “quirky deep dive” into Samsung’s relationship with Epic. As to why Apple made the request in the first place, the company has alleged that these documents 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 prove that Samsung has made similar decisions in how it distributes Epic. Fortnite.

However, Hixon contends that because Epic Games is a pretty big company, regardless of the arrangement he has with Samsung is unique and ‘can not serve as a replacement for a wider category of market players. ”

It’s hard to say that these two decisions are “wins” for Epic, as much as they are minor setbacks for Apple. Cook could very well be impeached for seven hours, but that doesn’t guarantee the court will side with Epic Games at the end of the day. Samsung’s denial, however, 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 series of hearings, one might say, of the ridiculous showmanship who started this whole saga in the first place. As a reminder, in August, Epic introduced direct in-app purchases in Fortnite who bypassed Apple’s 30% commission for transactions made through the App Store. This led to Apple start-up 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 Epic Games App Store Developer Account Termination.

The drama has calmed down a bit, as the trial is not expected to start until July. That said, it’s fair to assume that the next few months will see a lot of passive-aggressive legal back-and-forth as Epic and Apple try to rack up benefits for their individual cases.