Epic vs Apple: Cupertino Giant Expresses Disbelief over Facebook Despite Submitting Over 1,600 Documents

Just one month before the trial between Epic Games and Apple, both sides have already accomplished the list of the executives who will testify for the legal battle on May 3. However, at the moment, Facebook is greatly involved in the one-on-one feud of the giant companies.

Since Vivek Sharma, the executive of the social media giant, is chosen to be one of the witnesses behind Epic, the Cupertino tech firm seems to be unsatisfied even when the opposition has already presented the documents.

Apple Questions Facebook's Limited Set of Documents

According to MacRumors, not only the tension between Apple and Epic is happening at the moment, but also the involvement of Facebook against the consumer electronics company.

Apple requested to conduct a cross-examination for Sharma, who will specifically stand for the restricted iOS app distribution. Furthermore, this will also tackle the interaction of Facebook with Tim Cook's corporation, but the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company seems to be noncompliant about Apple's request for additional documents.

There are reportedly over 17,000 documents that are all about the Facebook executive. Apple believes that requesting another set of documents will be helpful in the trial.

However, the social media company said that what Apple was doing was an unjustified request of requiring thousands of sufficient papers for the case.

Facebook has only submitted more than 1,600 documents that Apple ordered to be given. 200 out of the estimated number of documents were related to Sharma. For Apple, the documents are still not enough to carry out the case.

Besides, Apple said that Facebook just declined the document requests, and it even called the action a delaying strategy.

Since December, the tech giant has already filed subpoenas to Facebook for the latter to comply with the required documents. However, Facebook has been turning down the order to produce more documents.

Apple's Never-Ending Request of Documents to Facebook

There was a time that Apple's patience ran out and it just agreed not to ask anymore for any additional papers to Facebook if only no executives from the company will be a witness for Epic.

However, the video game company assigned Sharma to testify for the case, and that triggered Apple to ask again for the supporting documents.

Facebook is aware of Apple's pursuit of documents, but after five days, it allegedly said that there is an ongoing technical processing time allotted for the investigation of the document production.

On Mar. 29, the social media platform confessed that it did not want anymore to give any documents to Apple. Also, Facebook stated that the tech giant's timing to speak about the document is deemed "improper" since it has managed to wait for the documents after the closure of the discovery period.

Moreover, Facebook uttered that the documents that Apple sought were irrelevant to the legal battle since it was only asking for the documents about iOS 14, and the App Tracking Transparency, which are both unrelated documents.

As per the Court's Rules, Apple has an opportunity to compel within a seven-day discovery period if it knows that the productions pose insufficiency. However, what made this an "untimely" motion was Apple's decision to choose not to compel.

Instead of doing the necessary action, it only claimed the assignment of the "Fortnite" creator to Sharma to be a witness in the trial. Since then, the endless demand of Apple for documents did not even stop.

Apple's urge is only for Facebook to comply with the document request in line with its right to investigate the trial witness.

On the other hand, Facebook said that Apple is only doing that to fish some answers after the cross-examination. It added that the court should not accept the request asked by Apple.

To access the discovery letter for the trial, visit Scribd.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Writen by Joen Coronel