Epic Games and Match want to expand their antitrust claims against Google

Epic Games and Match Group are trying to strengthen their antitrust lawsuits against Google by adding new counts to their first lawsuit filed last year that illustrate the efforts Google allegedly made to dominate the Android app market. The companies on Friday filed a motion to amend their lawsuits in their cases against Google, which now allege that Google paid competitors not to open other app stores that would put them in competition with Google Play. To do so would be in direct violation of U.S. antitrust laws known as the Sherman Act, the amended complaint states.

Epic Games and Match Group originally detailed Google’s plans in a filing last year, in which they detailed a Google program called “Project Hug,” or later the “Apps and Games Velocity Program.” Those efforts have focused on paying hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to game developers to keep their games on the Google Play Store, it said.

The program itself arrived after Epic Games released Fortnite outside of Google Play in 2018, where it bypassed Google’s marketplace fees. (The game later returned to Google Play in April 2020, until it was removed because users were able to bypass Google’s fees on in-app purchases.) Google was concerned at the time that Epic might consider partnering with an OEM like Samsung a pre-installation offer might decide. It also feared that other companies could follow Epic’s example and lead a new wave of alternative Android app stores.

The project is said to involve supporting the developers with additional promotions, resources and investments, and was deemed a success with Google signing deals with many of Project Hug’s targets, including Activision Blizzard.

Now, Epic Games and Match Group plan to add two new allegations to their complaint, detailing how Google either paid or otherwise got its potential competitors to agree not to distribute apps on Android in competition with the Play Store, including through their own competitor app stores. Google, it said, identified developers who were “at greatest risk…attrition from Play” and then approached them with a contract offer.

The Complaint now considers this a “per se” violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which “prohibits any contract, combination, whether in trust or otherwise, or conspiracy to restrict trade or commerce between or with the different States foreign nations,” it says.

In essence, this means that the actions that companies accuse Google of are so anti-competitive that they are almost always illegal, and that Google should allow no defense or justification. Typically, violations per se involve “simple agreements between competing companies to fix prices, share markets, or rig bids,” the FTC explains.

Of course, Google sees things differently.

The company filed a counterclaim against Match last July, saying the dating app giant is trying to make its services free to use. Google now says Epic has known about these agreements since filing its amended lawsuit in July 2021 and now wants to add new allegations without attaching or citing new evidence. It also claims that programs like Project Hug are a sign of healthy competition between platforms and app stores, not antitrust violations.

“Epic and Match continue to add inaccurate allegations to their failed lawsuits and we look forward to setting the record straight in court,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. “The program that Epic and Match base their claims on simply incentivizes developers to give Google Play users benefits and early access when they release new or updated content. it doesn’t stop developers from creating competing app stores as they claim. In fact, the program is proof that Google Play competes fairly with numerous competitors for developers who have a range of operating system and app store options,” they added.