Dutch Fortnite Claim Turns an ACM Fine Into €100 Million

Stichting Massaschade & Consument has put Epic Games on notice for more than €100 million over Fortnite sales aimed at young Dutch players. The foundation sent a liability notice on September 23, 2026 and asked to talk about a settlement. A court summons comes only if those talks fail.

The demand sits on a finished public finding. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets already fined Epic €1,125,000, and the District Court of Rotterdam backed that decision on January 14, 2026. That fine did not repay a single skin.

A €100 Million Claim Rides on an ACM Fine

SMC is not asking a judge to ban Fortnite. Chair Lucia Melcherts said a Dutch regulator found that Epic broke the rules, a court confirmed it, and the next step is to pay players back. The foundation wants refunds for unwanted Item Shop buys, extra damages for what it calls the game’s addictive design, and a separate sum for alleged breaches of the GDPR, the EU’s data law, over children’s personal data.

Those last two heads were not part of the ACM case. The watchdog ruled on shop design and in-game ads. SMC is using that record as a launch pad for a much wider bill, covering everyone who played Fortnite in the Netherlands before turning 21, back to the free Battle Royale launch on September 26, 2017.

On its campaign page the foundation held Epic liable and invited talks. If the talks go nowhere, Finch Dispute Resolution will serve a summons and a Dutch court will first test whether SMC may even speak for the group. The foundation itself says that kind of case can run for several years.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The public fine: ACM sanctioned Epic Games International in 2024, and Rotterdam upheld that decision on January 14, 2026.
• The shop rebuild: ACM said on July 22, 2024 that Epic had put the ordered Item Shop changes into the live game.
• The private step: SMC’s September 23, 2026 notice seeks more than €100 million and is still at the settlement-talk stage.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The €100 million math: SMC has not published a player-by-player loss model behind that headline figure.
• Addiction and GDPR cash: those extra heads have not been tried in the Dutch Fortnite file.
• A court date: no summons has been served, and no hearing is listed.

A PIN on a parent’s phone does not answer that gap. The ACM file is about how the shop was built, not about whether a grown-up later approved a card charge.

Rotterdam Confirmed the Item Shop Pressured Children

ACM’s 2024 investigation treated Fortnite as a game aimed at children. Cosmetic items in the Item Shop, skins, emotes, wraps, do not change how a match is won, but they are sold inside the session. For at least a year, the watchdog said, Epic used that setting in ways that leaned on how children buy.

Countdown clocks sat next to offers that were still there after the clock hit zero, which ACM called misleading because they stoked fear of missing out and pushed impulse buys. A second finding hit in-game ads that told children to purchase in so many words, with buttons such as “Buy,” “Get it now” and “Grab it.” A third finding, treated as a dark pattern, said the rotating shop, the clocks and the unclear scarcity cues were too hard for children to parse in a 24-hour window, which broke the duty of professional care toward minors.

In May 2024 ACM imposed two fines totaling 1,125,000 euros and a binding instruction that had to be in place before June 10, 2024.

HOW ACM SPLIT THE SANCTIONS

Epic fought the decision and lost at every administrative step. ACM dismissed its objection on November 27, 2024. On appeal it did not contest the misleading-timer finding and did not contest the size of the fines. The District Court of Rotterdam declared Epic’s appeal unfounded on January 14, 2026, and backed ACM on the remaining points, including the choice to judge the shop through the eyes of children under 18. SMC says Epic then skipped a further appeal, which the foundation treats as making the ACM order final.

Businesses that offer products to children have a responsibility to keep in mind that children are particularly sensitive to certain incentives. In the popular game Fortnite, children’s vulnerabilities were exploited and were thus pressured into making purchases.

Cateautje Hijmans van den Bergh, Member of the Board, ACM

Research cited by SMC, among more than 1,000 Dutch teenagers aged 16 to 19, found that six in 10 buyers of currencies such as V-Bucks said it did not feel like real money, and half said they had regretted a purchase made under time pressure. That survey is SMC’s evidence for the human residue of the shop ACM already judged, not a new regulator finding.

What Epic Changed After the ACM Order

The binding instruction was a rebuild order, not a refund order. Epic told ACM how it would change the Item Shop, and the watchdog said those steps would break the dark pattern if they actually shipped. On July 22, 2024, ACM said a check showed Epic had put the announced measures into Fortnite.

THE SHOP RULES ACM SIGNED OFF

• No countdown clocks: ticking timers were stripped from the Item Shop worldwide.
• Plain exit dates: each item page shows the date it will leave, and the shop shows the local refresh time.
• Forty-eight hours in the Netherlands: players under 18 in the Netherlands only see items offered for 48 hours or more.
• Cabined accounts: players under 16 in the Netherlands need a parent or guardian before real-money buys.
• Undo and returns: an undo-purchase control covers 24 hours or first use, whichever comes first, and each player gets three return tickets.

Colour frames and scarcity labels on items were removed worldwide as well. None of that pays back a 2018 emote. SMC’s own FAQ is blunt about the other side of a win: if a court unwinds the buys, players may have to hand the cosmetics back and lose them in-game.

Who Can Join the Dutch Fortnite Claim?

The proposed class is wider than the ACM file, which judged the shop from the standpoint of children under 18. SMC says it speaks for every natural person who played Fortnite while under 21, while habitually living in the Netherlands, at any time from September 26, 2017 through the date of a later court ruling under Dutch collective-action rules. That sweep takes in 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds, who are adults for most Dutch law, if they played before their 21st birthday.

Sign-up is open on the foundation’s site. You must live in the Netherlands now, have lived there when you played, have been under 21 at the time, and have played after September 26, 2017. How much you played does not matter, and turning 21 later does not cut you out. Parents can enrol a minor. A minor who tries to enrol triggers an email to a parent or guardian for consent.

Compensation, if any, would track what a person spent on unwanted Item Shop goods. SMC’s example is a player who bought €100 of skins, pickaxes and emotes and might reclaim that €100. Damages for alleged addictive design and for alleged GDPR breaches would sit on top, and would vary by person. No Dutch court has awarded either head in this case.

Epic Says Parents Already Hold the Controls

Phil Mahoney, a spokesperson for Epic Games, said the company already gives parents tools to control spends and playtime. He said the Fortnite Item Shop does not have a timer, parents can require a PIN for real-money purchases, and players under 18 in the Netherlands cannot see or buy items that are in the shop for less than 48 hours.

When a player under 16 in the Netherlands creates an account, he said, it is a Cabined Account that cannot make real-money purchases until a parent or guardian consents. Epic also points to a two-step confirmation on buys, instant purchase cancellations, self-service returns for shop purchases, and an explicit choice on whether to save payment information.

Those tools answer a charge that children can still tap a parent’s saved card with no friction. They do not answer Rotterdam’s finding about how the shop used to talk, and they do not cover years of play before cabined accounts and the 48-hour rule. The easy reply is that a parent who hated V-Bucks should have switched the PIN on. That still leaves a court record that the shop itself used false scarcity and buy-now language on children, which is why a public fine exists at all. Skins that rotate back onto the peg later are the same fact ACM called a misleading clock.

We aren’t asking for Fortnite to be banned. But a Dutch regulator found that Epic broke the rules, and a court has confirmed it. The logical next step is for Epic to pay players back. Epic deliberately designed the game to pressure players into buying. Young consumers are supposed to be protected from exactly that. The bill belongs with the company that made the game, not with the players or their parents.

Lucia Melcherts, Chair, Stichting Massaschade & Consument

Funders Cap Their Cut at 25 Percent

Joining costs nothing up front. SMC runs the Fortnite file on a no cure, no pay basis. Two outside backers, Omni Bridgeway and Winward, carry the cost and the risk. If the claim yields money, they recoup their outlay first, then take a success fee. SMC says the combined cut for funders and lawyers never exceeds 25 percent of the compensation after costs, so players are told they keep at least 75 percent. If the case fails, players pay nothing.

That is the same shop that funded SMC’s other games case. On June 24, 2025 the foundation summoned Sony on behalf of 1.7 million Dutch PlayStation owners, saying digital games and in-game content on the closed PlayStation Store have been overpriced. It puts Dutch harm at up to €435 million since 2013. The first hearing in that file was on June 29, 2026 at the District Court of Midden-Nederland. Fortnite is the second live-service claim from the same desk, this time built on a regulator’s finished order rather than a fresh competition theory.

US players have already seen the refund step that Dutch players never got from ACM. In December 2022 Epic agreed to pay a total of $520 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges, $275 million for children’s privacy law breaches and $245 million to refund unwanted Fortnite charges tied to dark-pattern billing. Those US facts are a different legal system and a different set of tricks, including one-button misclicks. They still show what happens when a dark-pattern file is allowed to end in cash to players instead of a modest public fine.

FROM THE FREE LAUNCH TO THE NOTICE

1. September 26, 2017: Fortnite Battle Royale goes free, which SMC treats as the start of the Dutch class window.
2. May 14, 2024: ACM imposes €1,125,000 in fines and a binding Item Shop instruction on Epic Games International.
3. July 22, 2024: ACM says Epic has put the ordered shop changes into the live game.
4. January 14, 2026: The District Court of Rotterdam upholds the ACM sanctions.
5. September 23, 2026: SMC holds Epic liable and invites a collective settlement; a summons follows only if talks fail.

A more than €100 million demand is more than 80 times the ACM fine, and it reaches years the rebuilt shop no longer resembles. Epic can argue that parents now hold the PIN and that children in the Netherlands no longer see a ticking clock. SMC can argue that a court has already said the old shop broke the rules, and that a fine paid to the state is not money back in a teenager’s account. The next move is a meeting, or a summons.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a consumer claim and related regulator action, and it is for information only. It is not legal advice, is not an invitation to join or leave the claim, and is not a view on whether any player is owed money. Anyone thinking about taking part, opting out, or relying on Fortnite purchase records should speak to a qualified Dutch lawyer or a recognised consumer adviser before acting. Figures, class rules, shop settings and case status are those given by the named bodies as of the dates in this piece and may change if talks, a summons or a later ruling recast them.