Apple Appeals For Pause In Epic Game Ruling

Apple asks Appeal Court to pause ruling, after judge ordered criminal contempt investigation for “wilful violation” of court order

By Tom Jowitt,
4 min
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Apple has asked an Appeal Court to temporarily pause key provisions in a US judge’s “extraordinary” ruling for the firm to comply with a previous court order.

Last week Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers effectively threw the legal book at Apple, after she ruled it had wilfully violated a 2021 injunction that came out of the Epic Games court case that required the iPhone maker to allow greater competition for app downloads and payment methods in its lucrative App Store.

Besides ruling that Apple had wilfully violated a 2021 injunction, Judge Rogers also wrote in her court filing that Apple VP of Finance Alex Roman “outright lied under oath” to the court.

As a result, Judge Rogers referred the matter to state attorneys to investigate whether to pursue criminal contempt proceedings on both Alex Roman and Apple itself.

Epic Games lawsuit

Last week’s ruling from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers was a stunning development in the Apple and Epic Games battle.

It was also a notable reprimand of Apple’s conduct and behaviour in the case.

Epic Games had sued Apple in 2020, in an effort to force Apple to allow third-party payment systems, as well as to allow third-party app stores on its devices.

Fortnite game characters. Epic games, videogames.

But Apple won the vast majority of counts in the original trial. That said however, Epic Games did win some concessions.

In September 2021 Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers had ordered Apple to make major changes to its App Store – for the first time allowing developers to send their users to alternative payment systems.

The judge found in 2021 that Apple had violated California’s unfair competition law by barring developers from “steering” users to make digital purchases that bypass Apple’s in-app system, which Epic argued could save them money with lower commissions.

The judge at the time had therefore ordered that Apple to allow third-party developers to provide links and buttons that direct consumers to other ways to pay for digital content that they use in their apps, bypassing Apple’s own payment system and Apple’s 27 percent fee imposed on app developers when its customers complete an app purchase outside the App Store.

Wilful violation

In 2024 Epic Games had accused Apple of failing to comply by creating a new set of fees for developers instead.

Then last week Judge Rogers wrote in her filing…

“For the reasons set forth herein, the Court FINDS Apple in wilful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing,” said the Judge in the filing. “Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated.”

Judge Rogers also noted that CEO Tim Cook had ignored executive Phillip Schiller’s urging to have Apple comply with her injunction.

“Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly, ” Judge Rogers wrote in her court filing.

Apple appeal

Apple last week said it would appeal, telling CNBC “we strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.”

Now in its filing with the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, Apple stated “the district court’s extraordinary Order includes a new injunction that permanently precludes Apple from exercising control over core aspects of its business operations, including charging for use of its property and protecting the integrity of its platform and in-app purchase mechanism.”

“These restrictions, which will cost Apple substantial sums annually,” said Apple, adding “in this motion, Apple seeks a stay of the prohibitions on charging any commission or fee for transactions made through external purchase and setting any conditions on the language or placement of links or other references to external purchase options. These new rules were not part of the original injunction.”

Apple said “it is unlawful to prohibit Apple from charging a commission on linked transactions.”

“Without a stay, these extraordinary intrusions into Apple’s business will cause grave irreparable harm. Depriving Apple of control over core features of the App Store is, standing alone, sufficient to warrant a stay,” Apple said.

Meanwhile Epic Games tweeted that “Apple’s Motion to Stay is a last ditch effort to block competition and extract massive junk fees at the expense of consumers and developers.”