Apple vs Epic Games Trial: Tim Cook and Other Top Executives to Testify

According to MacRumors, Apple has submitted its witness list for the upcoming bench trial against Epic Games. The list names several high-ranking Apple execs, including CEO Tim Cook, Apple Fellow Phil Schiller, and Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi.

All of Apple’s witnesses are set to appear before Judge Yvonne Gonzales in person.

During the trial, Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has already undergone a 7-hour deposition for the trial, will be directly examined for one hour and cross-examined for another hour.

Apple executive Craig Federighi will testify for two hours and be cross-examined for one hour, as will App Store head Phil Schiller, who will testify for 10 hours.

After trying (and failing) to limit Tim Cook’s testimony late last year, it appears that Apple has decided to turn the situation around in its favour.

In a statement to MacRumors, the Apple said that its executives cannot wait to share the very positive impact the App Store has had on innovation, economies around the world, customer experience, and more:

Our senior executives look forward to sharing with the court the very positive impact the ‌App Store‌ has had on innovation, economies across the world and the customer experience over the last 12 years. We feel confident the case will prove that Epic purposefully breached its agreement solely to increase its revenues, which is what resulted in their removal from the ‌App Store‌. By doing that, Epic circumvented the security features of the ‌App Store‌ in a way that would lead to reduced competition and put consumers’ privacy and data security at tremendous risk.

Apple’s witness list also names App Store‌ Vice President Matt Fischer, Head of Fraud Engineering Algorithms and Risk Eric Friedman, Director of Commerce and Payments Eric Gray, Game Development Manager Mark Grimm, and other employees in marketing, developer relations, and related fields.

Witnesses for Epic Games on the other side of the docket will include Epic Games‌ CEO Tim Sweeney and other Epic employees, executives from Facebook, Microsoft, and Nvidia, and former iOS software chief Scott Forstall.

Forstall was heavily involved in the launch of the App Store and was once crowned Apple’s next ‘CEO-in-waiting’, before being ousted from the company in 2013.

Apple and Epic Games are set to meet in court on Monday, May 3, in a bench trial, meaning that the trial will have no jury involved.