Two appeals later, Epic Games has finally received the trial date it has been seeking for its legal fight against Apple.
After some flipping and flopping, the Australian Epic Games-Apple lawsuit has been given a conditional trial date for November 2022. Justice Nye Perram on Friday morning said he did not want to delay the proceedings any further, given the case has already faced two appeals, with one of them putting the case on hold. The Epic-Apple case was stayed in April as Perram wanted to first see the outcome of a similar lawsuit being heard in the US before continuing with the Australian case. Epic Games then appealed that decision and won, which allowed it to recommence the case. Three Federal Court judges granted the appeal as they found the case involves fundamental public interest issues in relation to conduct undertaken in an Australian sub-market. During a case management hearing on Friday, Apple legal representative Conor Bannan asked about the potential for another stay of the proceedings, but Perram quickly set that aside, saying the iPhone maker would have to submit a formal application for him to even consider another stay of proceedings. „I don’t think I should really do through the back door something which really ought to be done through the front door and I think if you want to apply to stay the proceedings, you’re going to need to make a formal application for that,“ Perram said.
