(Reuters) – The UK antitrust court ruled on Monday that Epic Games, creator of the popular Fortnite game, will not be allowed to pursue its case against Apple Inc in the UK over its App Store payment system and control of application downloads.
The two companies have been at odds since August, when the game maker tried to avoid Apple’s 30% tax on the App Store by launching its own in-app payment system, which led to Fortnite being banned from its store.
The UK court said that Epic’s lawsuit against Alphabet Inc’s Google could move forward, but said the United States would be a better forum for its case against Apple.
“Epic will reconsider the progress of its case against Apple in the United Kingdom after the case was resolved in the United States,” the video game company said in a statement in response to the court’s decision.
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
In October, a California federal judge ruled in an injunction that Apple could block the Fortnite game from its App Store, but it should not harm Epic’s developer tools business, which includes the “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 leveled the playing field.
Reporting by Chavi Mehta, Ayanti Bera and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Krishna Chandra Eluri edition