Apple wants Epic to pay $73 million for its own court costs over their App Store legal spat

Following the Supreme Court;'s decision not to hear appeals by either Apple or Epic Games in a bloody antitrust battle that saw the former win out across nine of 10 issues, the iPhone maker has claimed that Epic should pay $73 million to cover its costs.

Apple's claim is that since Epic lost 90% of the court case last time out and that there is now no appeal to be heard, the game software company should be forced to pay for 90% of its court bills. Apple says that it spent $82,971,401 defending against its case. It then adjusted that to $81,560,362 before deducting the 10% that it believes it should have to pay itself. The result? A cool $73,404,326 tax bill has now landed at the doorstep of Epic.

Apple says that since Epic broke its App Store rules that brought all of this about, it's on Epic to pay for its costs. This comes after Apple pointed to its developer program license agreement which developers agree to when publishing apps and games to the App Store. In that agreement, Epic and other developers agree to indemnify Apple against legal expenses relating to breaches of that agreement.

Epic Games has so far not disputed that it broke Apple's rules which means that it might struggle to fight these legal claims should it take the stance that it shouldn't be forced to pay them. However, it's likely that Apple will want to make an example of Epic to ensure that no other developer chooses to go down a similar route.