Facebook has been involved in the ongoing battle between
Apple and Epic Games, and the social media company has been arguing with Apple over
document requests as Facebook executive Vivek Sharma is set to testify on
behalf of Epic.
Sharma plans to testify about Apple's restrictions on iOS
app distribution, the App Store process, and Facebook's interactions with Apple.
Apple, on the other hand, is asking for a "limited set of documents" required
for a fair cross examination in relation to the procedure. Facebook has,
however, refused to comply.
According to Facebook, producing tens of thousands of documents is an "untimely, unfair, and unjustified request to redo fact discovery," as Apple requires over 17,000 documents that it finds relevant to the case. Even though Facebook has already provided Apple with a total of more than 1,600 documents, 200 out of which are apparently relevant to Sharma, the tech giant has objected that they are not sufficient.
Apple has also complained that Facebook has been constantly
ignoring requests for documents by using delaying tactics. The company said
that it got into discussions with Facebook couple times to narrow the scope of
the requests, but Facebook has not agreed to producing the required number of documents.
Quitting the matter out of frustration, Apple stopped
demanding the documents from Facebook, but after Epic enlisted Sharma as its
testifier, Apple is back on its stance. Now Facebook is arguing that Apple made
the timing of the request "improper" by asking for the documents
after the discovery period had closed and before Sharma was confirmed as Epic’s
witness. The social media company further claimed that Apple is demanding additional
and irrelevant documents relating to iOS 14 and Facebook's response to App
Tracking Transparency.
The argument resulted in Apple taking the matter to the
court to order Facebook to comply with Apple's request for the documents. The court
has reportedly denied Apple’s request and called it “untimely”. The court,
however, allowed Apple to raise a motion to have Sharma dismissed as a witness,
provided that Epic failed to disclose him in a timely manner.
