Apple asks Facebook to give up 17,000 docs for Epic Games fight — social media giant says 'no'
By Kimberly Gedeon published 6 April 21
Facebook says hell no to Apple's time-consuming request
(Image credit: Snappa)
Apple is hell bent on winning its highly publicized legal battle against Epic Games, so it is tapping into Facebook's wealth of informational resources to help it emerge victorious against the Fortnite creator.
The MacBook maker asked Facebook to relinquish more than 17,000 documents, but the social-media giant (who publicly sided with Epic Games in this dispute) refuses to produce the documents that Apple is asking for despite receiving several subpoenas (via MacRumors).
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Facebook "stonewalled" Apple after it requested an overwhelming amount of documents
Last December, Facebook publicly announced its support for Epic Games after the Fortnite creator slammed Apple with a lawsuit that paints the Cupertino-based tech giant as a monopolistic, anti-competitive entity.
"We think it's really important that the court understand far reaching impact of Apple's unfair policies," said Steve Satterfield, Facebook's Director of Privacy and Public Policy at Facebook.
Epic Games recently named Facebook VP of Gaming Vivek Sharma as a witness in its fight against Apple, and as a result, the MacBook maker is seeking a "limited set of documents" necessary for a fair cross examination of Sharma. In fact, Apple claims that it has served Facebook with subpoenas twice to no avail.
"Apple and Facebook met and conferred multiple times to narrow the scope of these subpoenas," Apple said in the court filing. "Nevertheless, Facebook refused to produce documents pursuant to multiple requests in the first subpoena, and refused to produce any documents responsive to the second subpoena."
Apple claimed that Facebook had been stonewalling the Cupertino-based tech giant until Facebook finally admitted on March 29 that it had no intentions on producing any more documents for Apple.
Of course, there's two sides to every story and Facebook claims that it has already provided Apple with 1,600 documents involving Sharma. "If Apple believed that production was insufficient in any way, it had every opportunity to move to compel within 7 days of the close of discovery as required by the Court's Rules. Apple chose not to, making this motion untimely," Facebook said in the court filing.
On top of that, Facebooks says that Apple's request would require them to produce an overwhelming number of documents: more than 17,000. The social-media giant basically said, "Ain't nobody got time for that" in legalese. Facebook argued that it should not be forced to review tens of thousands of documents because Apple wants to go "fishing for some theoretical cross material."
Rawr! The claws are out between Facebook and Apple, and I can't wait to see how this Apple vs. Epic Games fight turns out. Valve held a similar position as Facebook when Apple asked the developer of Steam to produce an insane number of documents, but a judge ruled in Apple's favor.
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