Videogame developer Epic Games said it has settled its antitrust lawsuit against smartphone maker Samsung Electronics, ahead of the expected launch of new Samsung phones on Wednesday.
Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney said in a post on social media that Samsung had agreed to “address Epic’s concerns”, without providing details.
Epic declined further comment.
‘Auto Blocker’
“We’re dismissing our court case against Samsung following the parties’ discussions,” Sweeney wrote. “We are grateful that Samsung will address Epic’s concerns.”
The lawsuit, filed in September of last year, alleged that Samsung had colluded with Google to place limits on third-party app stores, in violation of antitrust laws.
It said Samsung’s “Auto Blocker” feature, which blocked downloaded apps installed outside of Google Play or Samsung’s Galaxy Store and was turned on by default, as an example of collusion.
Epic at the time called for Samsung to either disable the Auto Blocker feature by default or allow for a whitelist feature that would permit the installation of “trusted” apps.
Samsung said at the time that it would “vigorously contest Epic Game’s baseless claims”, while Google called the claims “meritless”.
“Android device makers are free to take their own steps to keep their users safe and secure,” Google said at the time.
Rival app store
A year ago Epic launched its own app store to distribute its own games and third-party titles, while continuing to challenge the app store policies of smartphone app store operators such as Apple, Google and Samsung in multiple ongoing cases.
Epic won a separate case against Google in 2023 over claims that Google’s app store constituted an illegal monopoly, but Google’s appeal on that case is still pending.
The case filed last September against Google and Samsung is ongoing, with Epic having refiled its case to remove the claims against Samsung.
