A threat of a breach of contract is not a breach of contract, which will be a sticking point if the EU gets involved again.
I don’t know EU law. But anticipatory breach is enough to trigger damages under American law, and “is an excuse for non-performance by the non-breaching party” [1].
There are laws other than the DMA?
(Anticipatory breach is incorporated into EU law through the UN CISG [1].)
Epic’s fee is global. Once you sign with them, you pay that on every install. There is also the 5% royalty, which brings the actual fee to 17% since we’re comparing non-small developer figures.
Schiller emailed Sweeney asking for assurances and Sweeney responded with:
> Epic and its subsidiaries are acting in good faith and will comply with all terms of current and future agreements with Apple, and we'll be glad to provide Apple with any specific further assurances on the topic that you'd like.
Without reply, Apple summarily terminated their developer account a week later. It seems obvious, in retrospect, that Schiller's email's goal was to establish a fig leaf of Apple having reached out before doing this.
It is indeed true that Sweeney has tweeted many criticisms of Apple's DMA plans but there haven't been any threatening noncompliance.
Let’s not forget that Epic has previously breached contract with Apple in the past. That’s why Fortnite isn’t in the store today.
Surely this must be the true source of Apples suspicion?
Do we have neutral sources for these claims and emails?
Apple said Sweeney threatened to breach contract and didn’t repudiate in private. Epic claims it didn’t threaten and did repudiate. We’re in a he said she said absent independent sourcing.
The source for the tweets (from your original comment: "Sweeney allegedly tweeted that he would breach his contract with Apple") are Sweeney's Twitter feed which you can read as well as I did. Did you find any threatening non-compliance?
Even with screenshots, and assuming no false claims (which IIRC are entirely legal so long as you don't swear under oath), there's plenty of ways to mislead by omission while saying only true things.
That increases consumer choice and weakens the market power of both.
Sweeney allegedly tweeted that he would breach his contract with Apple. Apple reached out and asked if he was being hysterical for public display. He didn’t clarify. At that point, Epic credibly threatened breach of contract.
This is a commercial dispute between multi-billion dollar companies, both of whom charge outrageous platform fees, both of whom seem to enjoy being dramatic, and both of whom are being maximally aggressive. It’s fair to remain emotionally uninvolved.