U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers on Wednesday found Apple in contempt of court and ruled that effective immediately, Apple can no longer charge a commission on purchases made outside of its App Store. Apple is also prohibited from restricting developers from including links to third-party payment systems and payment methods outside of the App Store in their apps.
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Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over Epic Games’ antitrust lawsuit against Apple, said in an 80-page ruling that the company failed to comply with her previous order prohibiting restraints of competition in the App Store.
Gonzalez Rogers noted that Apple “willfully” chose not to comply with its previous injunction under a 2021 ruling. “That [Apple] thought this court would tolerate such disobedience was a gross miscalculation,” Rogers said.
«”Apple’s continued attempts to prevent competition are unacceptable,” she said. “This is an injunction, not a negotiable matter. There can be no repetition if a party deliberately ignores a court order.”
In addition to the ban on charging fees for purchases outside the App Store, the ruling also prohibits Apple from blocking or restricting app developers’ “use of buttons or other calls to action” or interfering with users leaving an app with anything other than a “neutral message informing them that they are being redirected to a third-party site.”
The judge also referred the case to the U.S. attorney for consideration of possible criminal contempt of court prosecution against Apple and one of its executives, Alex Roman, a vice president of finance. She said Roman’s testimony about the steps Apple took to comply with the injunction was “rife with misinformation and outright lies.”
Commenting on the court’s ruling, Apple said: “We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s ruling and file an appeal.”
In turn, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney called the ruling a significant victory for developers and consumers. “It forces Apple to compete with other payment services, not block them — which is what we wanted from the beginning,” Sweeney told reporters. He also said that Epic Games plans to return Fortnite to the Apple App Store next week.