Apple and Fortnite creator Epic Games sought a US appeals court to reconsider its April decision in an antitrust dispute that might compel Apple to alter its App Store payment policies.

In separate court filings, Apple and Epic expressed disagreement with a decision made by a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which has its headquarters in San Francisco. The panel should rehear the matter, according to the attorneys for the two corporations, or the court should gather ‘en banc’, or as an 11-judge panel, to review the controversy.

The complaint by Epic, which said Apple with illegally demanding software developers to pay up to 30 percent in commissions on customers' in-app purchases, was affirmed in an April three-judge decision that upheld a 2021 order in federal court in California.

The trial judge concluded that Apple broke a state unfair competition law in California but not US antitrust laws. In its most recent filing, Apple disputed a countrywide injunction over behavior it claimed was "procompetitive and does not violate the antitrust laws."

The charges Epic made against Apple, according to its 9th Circuit brief, directly violate the ‘core purpose’ of the US antitrust law, which is to promote competition. Additionally, Epic claimed that the appeals court failed to perform a ‘rigorous’ comparison of the alleged advantages to consumers and the alleged anti competitive impacts of Apple's actions.

En banc requests are not frequently granted by federal appeals courts. The 9th Circuit received 646 petitions requesting en banc rehearings from the court last year. The court granted 12 requests throughout that time. Nine cases received en banc reviews from the court in 2021.

The outcome might ultimately be decided by the US Supreme Court.

The lower court's decision is on hold while more appeals are being heard.

According to the decision of US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, Apple was not permitted to prevent AppStore developers from supplying links and buttons that point users to payment methods other than Apple's in-app purchase system.

Gonzalez Rogers didn't specify how Apple had to let those links or buttons.

Other nations' competition regulators, like those in South Korea, the Netherlands, and Japan, have taken action to compel Apple to make its in-app payment methods available.