Apple must produce 1.3 million documents by Monday, a judge ordered

“Prior to yesterday’s report, Apple never informed Epic Games or the Court that the number of documents it would need to review significantly exceeded prior estimates,” Judge Hixson said. “This information would have been obvious to Apple a few weeks ago. It is simply incredible that Apple only became aware of this information within two weeks of the last status report.”

In a status report filed with the court on September 26, Apple asked for more time to produce the full number of documents. The company told the court it found that following court-ordered search parameters yielded significantly more documents related to Apple’s decision-making process.

Judge Thomas S. Hixson stays Apple on the original deadline of Monday, September 30, 2024. Original Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers originally ordered Apple to produce the relevant documents on May 31. Judge Hixson called Apple’s last-minute request for more time “bad behavior.”

“This raises several related concerns,” Hixson added. “First of all, Apple’s status reports haven’t been good… It’s up to Apple to figure out how to meet this deadline, but Monday is indeed the deadline,” Hixson said, repeating his original deadline.

This is part of a long-running dispute between Epic and Apple that began when Epic intentionally bypassed the store’s terms and conditions at the time to offer a direct link to Epic for payment. Apple then banned Epic from the App Store.

During the ongoing legal battle, Apple responded to the European Union’s antitrust concerns and has since changed its EU policies. It now allows third-party payment options in the European version of the App Store if the app or service developer wants to include it. Epic has already opened its own store in the EU.

Epic is continuing the case, arguing that Apple has not fully complied with Judge Rogers’ ruling in the U.S. and other countries. Judge Hixson, in denying Apple’s request for a longer time, assumed that Apple could review that many documents over the course of a weekend.

He concluded that Apple’s delay in producing the amount of requested documents is because complying with the request “is to the detriment of Apple.” Theoretically, the documents could show that Apple intentionally failed to comply with all of Judge Rogers’ directives.